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REPORT 



ON THE 



INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



PUBLISHED AGREEABLY TO AN ORDER OF 

'* THE LEGISLATURE, ,m 

BY THE COMMISSIONERS ON THE ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL SURVEY 
OF THE STATE. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

FOLSOM, WELLS, AND THURSTON, 

I'KINTEKS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 

1841. 



»\ 



'5^ 




To George B. Emerson, Esq., 

Chairman of the Commissioners 

On the Zoological and Botanical Survey 
of Massachusetts. 
Dear Sir, 

Upon forwarding to me my commission, in the year 1837, you 
were pleased to request me to prepare a Report on the Insects of 
Massachusetts. 

The magnitude of the task, and various other motives deterred me 
from attempting to describe all the insects which might have been 
discovered by a careful and thorough survey of the whole State. A 
work of this kind, — much as it might promote the cause of science, 
if well done, — could not be expected to prove either interesting or 
particularly useful to the great body of the people. Some idea of the 
extent of such an undertaking may be formed from an examination of 
the Catalogues of the Insects of Massachusetts, drawn up by me for 
the first and second editions of Professor Hitchcock's " Report on the 
Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology," of this State. 

Believing that agriculture and horticulture, when aided by science, 
tend greatly to improve the condition of any people, and that these 
pursuits form the basis of our prosperity, and are the safeguards of 
our liberty and independence, I have felt it my duty, in treating the 
subject assigned to me, to endeavour to make it useful and acceptable 
to those persons whose honorable employment is the cultivation of 
the soil. 

Some knowledge of the classification of insects and of the scien- 
tific details of entomology seems to be necessary to the farmer, to 
enable him to distinguish his friends from his enemies of the insect 
race. He ought to be acquainted with the transformations and habits 
of the latter, in all their states, so that he ma^know how and when 
» most si^cpessfully to employ the means for prev«ntim| thei*' »avages. 
This kind #fMfnowledg^_wUl o.fitei* ^\^ J^ifi il» the sejection of the 
proper remedies, mnd may prevent him from falling into many mis- 
tall^.* Not (3i\l)^h€ farrii^r, however, Aut UiQg^\\'^o^are engaged^ in . 
other employments, would find some profit and pleasure in the study 



vi INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

of the natural history of insects, were the means for obtaining infor- 
mation on this branch of science more generally diffused. 

The plan of this Report, which I have now the honor of submitting, 
through you, to the people of this Commonwealth, was suggested by 
the foregoing considerations, by the want of a work on our native in- 
sects, combining scientific with practical details, and by the letter of 
instructions that accompanied my commission, wherein the economi- 
cal advantages to be derived from an investigation of the natural his- 
tory of this State, were particularly pointed out as objects of attention. 

A large amount of the materials, made use of in this work, was 
collected many years ago, at comparatively little cost ; but, after en- 
tering on my official duties, I was obliged to procure, at an expense 
far exceeding the compensation allowed me, a great number of books, 
in order to make myself acquainted with the discoveries and improve- 
ments in entomology therein set forth. In some cases I have had to 
rely on the recorded observations of others, for the want of an oppor- 
tunity to make the necessary investigations myself. The many ap- 
plications, which I have made to various persons, for information 
respecting our destructive insects, have rarely brought me any satis- 
factory replies. The greater part of my first report, which was pre- 
sented to the Legislature, in the year 1838, has been embodied in this, 
in order to afford a connected view of the whole subject. From 
among the numerous insects which are injurious to plants, I have se- 
lected for description chiefly those which are remarkable for their 
size, for the peculiarity of their structure and habits, or for the extent 
of their ravages ; and these, alone, will be seen to constitute a for- 
midable host. 

You have already looked over a considerable part of the manu- 
script, and have been pleased to express a favorable opinion of it. 
Should it prove as satisfactory to you and to the public, in its present 
form, the time and labor, bestowed upon it, will not have been spent 
in vain, 

By your friend and servant, 

THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS. 

Cambridge, December 1, 184 L 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The word Insect defined, — Brain and nerves, — Air-pipes and Breathing- 
holes, — Heart and Blood, 4. — Insects are produced from Eggs, — Meta- 
morphoses, — Examples of Complete Transformation, 5. — Partial Trans- 
formation, 6. — Larva or Infant State, Pupa or Intermediate State, Adult, 
or Winged State, 7. — Head, Eyes, Antennae, and Mouth, 8. — Thorax or 
Chest, Wings and Legs, — Abdomen or Hind-body, 9, — Piercer, and 
Sting, — Number of Insects compared with Plants, — Classification, Or- 
ders, Coleoptera, 10. — Orthoptera, Hemiptera, II. — Neuroptera, Lepi- 
doptera, 12. — Hymenoptera, 13. — Diptera, 14. — Other Orders and 
Groups, 17. — Remarks on Scientific Names, 19. 

COLEOPTERA. 

Beetles, — Scarabseians, 21. — Ground-Beetles, Tree-Beetles, 22. — Cock- 
chafers or May-Beetles, 23. — Flower-Beetles, 35. — Stag-Beetles, 38. — 
Buprestians, or Saw-horned Borers, 40. — Spring-Beetles, 46. — Timber- 
Beetles, 51. — Weevils, 53. — Cylindrical Bark-Beetles, 71. — Capricorn- 
Beetles, or Long-horned Borers, 77. — Leaf-Beetles, 94. — Criocerians, 95 

— Leaf-mining Beetles, 97. — Tortoise-Beetles, 98. — Chrysomelians, 99. 

— Cantharides, 109. 

ORTHOPTERA. 

Structure and Transformations, 114. — Earwigs, 116. — Cockroaches, 118. 

— Mantes, or Soothsayers, 118. — Walking-leaves, Spectres, — Crick- 
ets, 119. — Mole-Cricket, 120.— Field-Crickets, 121. — Climbing-Crick- 
et, 123. — Cucumber Skippers, 125. — Grasshoppers, 125. — Awl-Bearer, 
or wingless Cricket, 126, — Katy-did, 127. — Locusts, or flying Grass- 
hoppers, 132. 

HEMIPTERA. 

Bugs, 15C.— Squash-Bug, 158. — Plant-Bugs, 160. — Harvest-Flies, 164.— 
Cicadas, 165. — Tree-Hoppers, 177. — Leaf-Hoppers, 182. — Vine-Hop- 
per, 183. — Bean-Hopper, 185.— Aphidians, 186 — Thrips, Plant-Lice, 187. 

— American Blight, 193. — Enemies of Plant-Lice, 196. — Bark-Lice, 198. 



viii CONTENTS. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 

Caterpillars, 206. — Butterflies, 209. — Skippers, 222. — Hawk-Moths, 225. 
iEgerians, or Boring Caterpillars, 230.— Glaucopidians, 236. — Moths, 237. 

— Spinners, 239. — Lithosians, 240. — Tiger-Moths, and Ermine-Moths, 
242. — Tussock- Moths, 258. —Lackey-Moths, 265.— Lappet-Moths, 272. 

— Saturnians, 276. — Ceratocampians, 287. — Carpenter-Moths, 295. — 

— Psychians, 297. — Notodontians, 301. — Owl-Moths, 315. — Spindle- 
Worms, 318.— Cut- Worms, 321. — Geometers or Span- Worms, 330.— 
Canker-Worms, 332. — Delta-Moths, 343. — Leaf Rollers, 346. — Bud- 
Moths, 348. — Fruit-Moths, 351. — Tineae, 355. — Bee-Moths, 357.— 
Clothes-Moths, 360. — Grain-Moths, 363. — Feather- winged Moths, 368. 

HYMENOPTERA. 

Stingers and Piercers, 369. — Habits of some of the Hymenopterous In- 
sects, 370. — Saw-Flies, 371. — False Caterpillars and Slugs, 373. — Elm 
Saw-Fly, 374. — Fir Saw-Fly, 375. — Vine Saw-Fly, 378. — Rose-bush 
Slug, 380. — Pear-tree Slug, 382. — Horn-tailed Wood- Wasps, 386.— 
Four-winged Gall-Flies, 395. 

DIPTERA. 

Gnats and Flies, 401. — Maggots, and their Transformations, 402. — Club- 
footed Gnat, 404. — Snow-Gnat, 404. — Black Fly, Midges, 405. — Horse- 
Flies, 405.— Bee-Flies, 406. — Asilians, 407. — Soldier-Flies, 408.— 
Syrphians, 409, — Conopians, 410. — Parasitical Flies, Viviparous Flesh- 
Flies, 411. — Piercing Stable-Flies, Meat-Flies, and House-Flies, 412. 

— Flower-Flies, 414. — Two-winged Gall-Flies, and Fruit-Flies, 416. — 
Oscinians, 417. — Bot-Flies, 418.— Bird-Flies, and Spider-Flies, 420. — 
Flea, 421. — Gall-Gnats, 421. — Hessian Fly, 422. — Barley-Fly, 433. — 
Wheat- Fly, 437. — Wheat-Thrips, 444. — Wheat- Worm, Grain- Worm, 
or Wheat-Caterpillar, 445. 

INDEX, 449. 



C ORRECTION S. 

Page 18, line 16, for Phryaneada read Phryganeadce 

" 28, " 27, " pailsful " pailfuls 

" 48, " 4, " states «■ state 

" 92, " 29, " Democerus " Desmocerus 

« 97, « 8, « its " their 

" 140, " 28, " of '« and 

" 240, " 11, " Glaucopsis " Glaucopis 

" 269, " 5, " no " not 

" 328, «' 28, " yellow " black 

" 392, " 7, omit the before orange. 



REPORT 



INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS 



INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS, M. D. 



INSECTS 



OF 



MASSACHUSETTS 

INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Insect defined. — Brain and Nerves. — Air-pipes and Breathing-holes. 
— Heart and Blood. — Insects are produced from Eggs. — Metamorpho- 
ses, or Transformations. — Examples of Complete Transformation. — 
Partial Transformation. — Larva, or Infant State. — Pupa, or Inter- 
mediate State. — Adult, or Winged State. — Head, Eyes, Antenna, 
and Mouth — Thorax or Chest, Wings, and Legs. — Abdomen or 
Hind-body, Piercer, and Sting. — Number of Insects compared with 
Plants. — Classification. Orders. Coleoptera. Orthoptera. Hemip- 
TERA. Neuroptera. Lepidoptera. Hymenoptera. Diptera. Other 
Orders and Groups. — Remarks on Scientific Names. 

The benefits which we derive from insects, though neither few 
in number, nor inconsiderable in amount, are, if we except those of 
the silk-worm, the bee, and the cochenille, not very obvious, and 
are wholly beyond our influence. On the contrary, the injuries 
that we suffer from them are becoming yearly more apparent, and 
are more or less within our control. Before suitable remedies 
can be discovered, and effectually applied, it is necessary that our 
insect enemies should be recognised, and their habits generally 
known. The instructions of His Excellency Governor Everett 
seemed to point to the economical advantages to be derived from 
natural history, as the most proper objects of our consideration. 
These instructions, together with the nature and extent of the 
branch of natural history assigned to me, have led me to think 
that some account of the inse#s injurious to vegetation in Massa- 
chusetts would be acceptaole and satisfactory to the governor, and 
to the people of this Commonwealth. 



4 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

While I have not thought it expedient to avoid the use of a 
scientific classification, and have even been at some pains to point 
out the characters on which this classification is founded, and the 
peculiarities of the various groups of insects under consideration, 
it has been my endeavour to treat the subject in a plain and familiar 
way. No more of the technical language of entomology has been 
introduced, than was absolutely necessary to define and discrimi- 
nate the different insects, whose transformations are described, 
and in most cases the scientific names and terms have been ex- 
plained whenever they occurred. 

As this repprt is designed for the use of persons who may not 
have elementary and other works on this branch of natural history 
at their command, it may be proper to begin with some brief 
remarks on insects in general, in order to show how they are 
formed, and wherein they differ essentially from other animals. 

The word Insect^* which, in the Latin language from whence it 
was derived, means cut into or notched, was designed to express 
one of the chief characters of this group of animals, whose body 
is marked by several cross-lines or incisions. The parts between 
these cross-lines are called segments or rings, and consist of a 
number of jointed pieces, more or less movable on each other. 

Insects have a very small brain, and, instead of a spinal mar- 
row, a kind of knotted cord, extending from the brain to the 
hinder extremity ; and numerous small whitish threads, which are 
the nerves, spread from the brain and knots, in various direc- 
tions. Two long air-pipes, within their bodies, together with an 
immense number of smaller pipes, supply the want of lungs, and 
carry the air to every part. Insects do not breathe through 
their mouths, but through little holes, called spiracles, generally 
nine in number, along each side of the body. Some, however, 
have the breathing-holes placed in the hinder extremity, and a few 
young water-insects breathe by means of gills. The heart is a 
Jong tube, lying under the skin of the back, having little holes on 
each side for the admission of the juices of the body, which are 
prevented from escaping again by valves or clappers, formed to 

. T- "^ 

• Insectum is an abbreviation of intersectum ; and from the same source we have 
the word intersect, to cut or divide. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

I 

close the holes within. Moreover, this tubular heart is divided 

into several chambers, by transverse partitions, in each of which 

there is a hole shut by a valve, which allows the blood to flow 

only from the hinder to the fore part of the heart, and prevents it 

from passing in the contrary direction. The blood, which is a 

colorless or yellowish fluid, does not circulate in proper arteries 

and veins ; but is driven from the forepart of the heart into the 

head, and thence escapes into the body, where it is mingled with 

the nutritive juices that filter through the sides of the intestines, 

and the mingled fluid penetrates the crevices amOTg the flesh and 

other internal parts, flowing along the sides of the air-pipes, 

whereby it receives from the air that influence whiclPl-enders it 

fitted to nourish the frame, and maintain life. 

All insects are produced from eggs, and none are spontaneously 
generated from putrid animal or vegetable matter. A few insectSj 
such as some plant-lice, do not lay their eggs, but retain them 
within their bodies till the young are ready to escape. Other 
insects invariably lay their eggs where their young, as soon as 
they are hatched, will find a plentiful supply of food immediately 
within their reach. 

Most insects, in the course of their lives, are subject to very 
great changes of form, attended by equally remarkable changes in 
their habits and propensities. These changes, transformations, or 
metamorphoses^ as they are called, might cause the same insect, at 
different ages, to be mistaken for as many different animals. For 
example, a caterpillar, after feeding upon leaves till it is fully 
grown, retires into some place of concealment, casts off its cater- 
pillar-skin, and presents itself in an entirely different form, one 
wherein it has neither the power of moving about, nor of taking 
food ; in fact, in this its second or chrysalis state, the insect 
seems to be a lifeless oblong oval or conical body, without a dis- 
tinct head, or movable limbs ; after resting awhile, an inward 
struggle begins, the chrysalis-skin bursts open, and from the rent 
issues a butterfly, or a moth, whose small and flabby wings soon 
extend and harden, and become fitted to bear away the insect in 
search of the honeyed juice of flowers and other liquids that suffice 
for its nourishment. 



6 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The little fish-like animals that swim about in vessels of stag- 
nant water, and devour the living atoms that swarm in the same 
situations, soon come to maturity, cast their skins, and take an- 
other form, wherein they remain rolled up like a ball, and either 
float at the surface of the water, for the purpose of breathing 
through the two tunnel-shaped tubes on the top of their backs, or, 
if disturbed, suddenly uncurl their bodies, and whirl over and 
over from one side of the vessel to the other. In the course of a 
few days these little water-tumblers are ready for another trans- 
formation ; theffekin splits on the back between the breathing- 
tubes, the heaoV body, and limbs of a mosquito suddenly burst 
from the qj|Bning, the slender legs rest on the empty skin till the 
latter fills with water and sinks, when the insect abandons its 
native element, spreads its tiny wings, and flies away, piping its 
war-note, and thirsting for the blood which its natural weapons 
enable it to draw from its unlucky victims. 

The full-fed maggot, that has rioted in filth till its tender skin 
seems ready to burst with repletion, when the appointed time 
arrives, leaves the offensive matters it was ordained to assist in 
removing, and gets into some convenient hole or crevice ; then its 
body contracts or shortens, and becomes egg-shaped, vvhile the 
skin hardens, and turns brown and dry, so that, under this form, 
the creature appears more like a seed than a living animal ; after 
some time passed in this inactive and equivocal form, during 
which wonderful changes have taken place within the seed-like 
shell, one end of the shell is forced off', and from the inside comes 
forth a buzzing fly, that drops its former filthy habits with its 
cast-off" dress, and now, with a more refined taste, seeks only 
to lap the sohd viands of our tables, or sip the liquid contents of 
our cups. 

Caterpillars, grubs, and maggots undergo a complete transfor- 
mation in coming to maturity ; but there are other insects, such 
as crickets, grasshoppers, bugs, and plant-lice, which, though 
differing a good deal in the young and adult states, are not subject 
to so great a change, their transformations being only partial. For 
instance, the young grasshopper comes from the egg a wingless 
insect, and consequently unable to move from place to place, in 
any other way than by the use of its legs ; as it grows larger it 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

is soon obliged to cast off its skin, and, after one or two moult- 
ings, its body not only increases in size, but becomes proportion- 
ally longer tban before, while little stump-like wings begin to 
make their appearance on the top of the back. After this, the 
grasshopper continues to eat voraciously, grows larger and larger, 
and hops about without any aid from its short and motionless 
wings, repeatedly casts off its outgrown skin, appearing each time 
with still longer wings, and more perfectly formed limbs, till at 
length it ceases to grow, and, shedding its skin for the last time, it 
comes forth a perfectly formed and matured grasshopper, with the 
power of spreading its ample wings, and of using them in flight. 

Hence there are three periods in the life of an insect, more or 
less distinctly marked by corresponding changes in the form, pow- 
ers, and habits. In the first, or period of infancy, an insect is 
technically called a larva, a word signifying a mask, because 
therein its future form is more or less masked or concealed. 
This name is not only applied to grubs, caterpillars, and maggots, 
and to other insects that undergo a complete transformation, but 
also to young and wingless grasshoppers, and bugs, and indeed 
to all young insects before the wings begin to appear. In this 
first period, which is generally much the longest, insects are 
always wingless, pass most of their time in eating, grow rapidly, 
and usually cast off their skins repeatedly. The second period, 
wherein those insects, that undergo a partial transformation, retain 
their activity and their appetites for food, continue to grow, and 
acquire the rudiments of wings, while others, at this age, entirely 
lose their larva form, take no food, and remain at rest in a death- 
like sleep, — is called the pupa state, from a slight resemblance 
that some of the latter present to an infant trussed in bandages, as 
was the fashion among the Romans. The pupae from caterpillars, 
however, are more commonly called chrysalids, because some of 
them, as the name implies, are gilt or adorned with golden spots ; 
and grubs, after their first transformation, are often named nymphs, 
for what reason does not appear. At the end of the second 
period insects again shed their skins, and come forth fully grown, 
and (with few exceptions) provided with wings. They thus enter 
upon their last or adult state, wherein they no longer increase in 
size, and during which they provide for a continuation of their 



8 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

kind. This period usually lasts only a short time, for most 
insects die immediately after their eggs are laid. Bees, wasps, 
and ants, however, which live in society, and labor together for 
the common good of their communities, continue much longer in 
the adult state. 

In winged or adult insects, two of the transverse incisions, with 
which they are marked, are deeper than the rest, so that the body 
seems to consist of three principal portions, the first whereof is 
the head, the second or middle portion the thorax, or chest, and 
the third or hindmost the abdomen, or hind-body. In some 
wingless insects these three portions are also to be seen ; but in 
most young insects, or larvae, the body consists of the head, and 
a series of twelve rings or segments, the thorax not being dis- 
tinctly separated from the hinder part of the body, as may be 
perceived in caterpillars, grubs, and maggots. 

The eyes of adult insects, though apparently two in number, 
are compound, each consisting of a great number of single eyes 
closely united together, and incapable of being rolled in their 
sockets. Such also are the eyes of the larvae, and of the active 
pupae of those insects that undergo an imperfect transformation. 
Moreover, many winged insects have one, two, or three little 
sihgle eyes, placed near each other on the crown of the head, and 
called ocelli^ or eyelets. The eyes of grubs, caterpillars, and of 
other completely transforming larvae, are not compound, but con- 
sist of five or six eyelets clustered together, without touching, on 
each side of the head ; some, however, such as maggots, are 
totally blind. Near to the eyes are two jointed members, named 
antenna^ corresponding, for the most part, in situation, with the 
ears of other animals, and supposed to be connected with the 
sense of hearing, of touch, or of both united. The antennae are 
very short in larvae, and of various sizes and forms in other 
insects. 

The mouth of some insects is made for biting, that of others 
for taking food only by suction. In biting-insects the parts of the 
mouth, which are variously modified to suit the nature of the food, 
are these : an upper and an under lip, two nippers or jaws on 
each side, moving sidewise, and not up and down, and four or six 
little jointed members, called paZpi or feelers, whereof two belong 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

to the lower lip, and one or two to each of the lower jaws. The 
mouth of sucking-insects consists essentially of these same parts, 
but so different in their shape and in the purposes for which they 
are designed, that the resemblance between them and' those of 
biting-insects is not easily recognised. Thus the jaws of cater- 
pillars are transformed to a spiral sucking-tube in butterflies and 
moths, and those of maggots to a hard proboscis, fitted for pier- 
cing, as in the mosquito and horse-fly, or to one of softer consist- 
ence, and ending with fleshy lips for lapping, as in common flies ; 
while in bugs, plant-lice, and so.oie other insects resembling them, 
the parts of the mouth undergo no essential change from infancy 
to the adult state, but are formed into a long, hard, and jointed 
beak, bent under the breast when not in use, and designed only 
for making punctures and drawing in liquid nourishment. 

The parts belonging to the thorax are the wings and the legs. 
The former are two or four in number, and vary greatly in form 
and consistence, in the situation of the wing-bones or veins, as 
they are generally called, and in their position or the manner in 
which they are closed or folded when at rest. The under-side 
of the thorax is the breast, and to this are fixed the legs, 
which are six in number in adult insects, and in the larvae and 
pupse of those that are subject only to a partial transformation. 
The parts of the legs are the hip-joint, by which the leg is 
fastened to the body, the thigh, the shank (tibia), and the foot, 
the latter consisting sometimes of one joint only, more often of 
two, three, four, or five pieces (tarsi), connected end to end, like 
the joints of the finger, and armed at the extremity with one or 
two claws. Of the larva? that undergo a complete transformation, 
maggots and some others are destitute of legs ; many grubs have 
six, namely a pair beneath the under-side of the first three seg- 
ments, and sometimes an additional fleshy prop-leg under the 
hindmost extremity ; caterpillars and false caterpillars have, be- 
sides the six true legs attached to the first three rings, several 
fleshy prop-like legs, amounting sometimes to ten or sixteen in 
number, placed in pairs beneath the other segments. 

The abdomen, or hindmost, and, as to size, the principal part 
of the body, contains the organs of digestion, and other internal 
parts, and to it also belong the piercer and the sting with which 
2 



10 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

many winged or adult insects are provided. The piercer is some- 
times only a flexible or a jointed tube, capable of being thrust out 
of the end of the body, and is used for conducting the eggs into 
the crevices or holes where they are to be laid. In some other 
insects it consists of a kind of scabbard, containing a central 
borer, or instruments like saws, designed for making holes wherein 
the eggs are to be inserted. The sting, in like manner, consists 
of a sheath enclosing a sharp instrument for inflicting wounds, con- 
nected wherewith in the inside of the body is a bag of venom or 
poison. The parts belonging to the abdomen of larvae are vari- 
ous, but are mostly designed to aid them in their motions, or to 
provide for their respiration. 

An English entomologist has stated, that, on an average, there 
are six distinct insects to one plant. This proportion is probably 
too great for our country, where vast tracts are covered with 
forests, and the other original vegetable races still hold possession 
of the soil. There are above 1200 flowering plants in Massachu- 
setts, and it will be within bounds to estimate the species of 
insects at 4800, or in the proportion of four to one plant. To 
facilitate the study of such an immense number, some kind of 
classification is necessary ; it will be useful to adopt one, even in 
describing the few species now before us. The basis of this 
classification is founded upon the structure of the mouth, in the 
adult state, the number and nature of the wings, and the transfor- 
mations. The first great divisions are called orders, of which the 
following seven are very generally adopted by naturalists. 

1. — CoLEOPTERA {Beetles^. Insects with jaws, two thick 
wing-covers meeting in a straight line on the top of the back, 
and two filmy wings, which are folded transversely. Transfor- 
mation complete. Larvae, called grubs, generally provided with 
six true legs, and sometimes also with a terminal prop-leg ; more 
rarely without legs. Pupa with the wings and the legs distinct 
and unconfined. 

Many of these insects, particularly in the larva state, are very in- 
jurious to vegetation. The tiger-beetles (CicindeladcB*), the preda- 

* See the Catalogue of Insects appended to Professor Hitchcock's Report on the 
Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts. 2d edit. 8vo. 
Amherst. 1835. 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

ceous ground-beetles {Carabidce), the diving beetles (Dyf.iscidce), the 
lady-birds {Coccinelladce), and some others, are eminently serviceable 
by preying upon caterpillars, plant-lice, and other noxious or destruc- 
tive insects. The water-lovers {HydrophilidcB), rove-beetles (Staphy- 
linidce), carrion-beetles (SilphadcB), skin-beetles {Dermestadce, Byr- 
rhidcB, and Trogidcs), bone-beetles (some of the Nitiduladce and Cle- 
ridce), and various kinds of dung-beetles {Sphceridiadce^ Histeridce, 
Geotrupidcs* , Coprididce*, and AphodiadcB*), and clocks {Pimeliadce 
and BlaptidcE), act the useful part of scavengers, by removing car- 
rion, dung, and other filth, upon which alone they and their larvae 
subsist. Many Coleoptera (some Sf.aphylinidce and Nitiduladce, Dia- 
perididce, some SerropalpidcB, MycetophagidcR, Erot.ylidcB, and En- 
domycliidce) live altogether on agarics, mushrooms, and toadstools, 
plants of very little use to man, many of them poisonous, and in a 
Slate of decay often offensive ; these fungus-eaters are therefore to 
be reckoned among our friends. There are others, such as the stag- 
beetles (LucanidcB), some spring-beetles {Elateridce), darkling beetles 
(TenebrionidcE), and many bark-beetles {Helopidcs, Cisf.elad<2, Serro- 
palpidce, CEdemeradcz,' Cucujadcs, and some Trogosif.adcB), which, liv- 
ing under the bark and in the trunks and roots of old trees, though 
they may occasionally prove injurious, must, on the whole, be consid- 
ered as serviceable, by contributing to destroy, and reduce to dust, 
plants that have passed their prime, and are fast going to decay. And, 
lastly, the blistering-beetles (Cantharididce) have, for a long time, 
been employed with great benefit in the healing art. 

2. — Orthoptera (Cockroaches, CricJceis, Grasshoppers, 

fyc). Insects with jaws, two rather thick and opake upper 

wings, overlapping a little on the back, and two larger, thin 

Wings, which are folded in plaits, like a fan. Transformation 

partial. Larvae and pupae active, but wanting wings. 

All of the insects of this order, except the camel-crickets (Manti' 
dee), which prey on other insects, are injurious to our household pos- 
sessions, or destructive to vegetation. 

3. — Hemiptera [Bugs, Locusts, Plant-lice, ^c). Insects 
with a horny beak for suction, four wings, whereof the up- 
permost are generally thick at the base, with thinner extremi- 

* All the Scarabffiidfe of my Catalogue, from Meuchus to Geotrupes inclusive 
to which may be added many included in the genus Scarabceus. 



12 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ties, which lie flat, and cross each other on the top of the hack, 
or are of uniform thickness throughout, and slope at the sides 
like a roof. Transformation partial. Larvae and pupae nearly 
hke the adult insect, but wanting wings. 

The various kinds of field and house bugs give out a strong and dis- 
agreeable smell. Many of them, (some Pentatomadce and LygceidcB, 
Cimicidce, Reduviad(2, HydrometradcB, Nepadce, and Notonectada)^ 
live entirely on the juices of animals, and by this means destroy great 
numbers of noxious insects ; some are of much service in the arts, 
affording us the costly cochineal, scarlet grain, lac, and manna ; but 
the benefits derived from these are more than counterbalanced by the 
injuries committed by the domestic kinds, and by the numerous tribes 
of plant-bugs, locusts or cicadse, tree-hoppers, plant-lice, bark-lice, 
mealy bugs, and the like, that suck the juices of plants, and require 
the greatest care and watchfulness on our part to keep them in check. 

4. — Neuroptera [Drngon-Jiies, Lace-winged Jlies ; May- 
jiies, Ant-lion, Day-Jlij, White ants, fyc-)- Insects with jaws, 
four netted wings, of which the hinder ones are the largest, 
and no sting or piercer. Transformation complete, or partial. 
Larva and pupa various. 

The white ants, wood-lice, and wood-ticks ( Termitidce and Psochi- 
dcB)^ the latter including also the little ominous death-watch, are 
almost the only noxious insects in the order, and even these do not 
injure living plants. The dragon-flies, or, as they are commonly 
called in this country, devil's needles {LihelluladcB), pi'ey upon gnats 
and mosquitos ; and their larvae and pupae, as well as those of the 
day-flies (jEp/temerac?«), semblians [SemhlididcB) , and those of some of 
the May-flies, called cadis-worms [Phryganeadm), all of which live in 
the water, devour aquatic insects. The predaceous habits of the ant- 
lions (Myrmeleontidce) have been often described. The lace-winged 
flies [HemerohiadcE), in the larva state, live wholly on plant-lice, 
great numbers of which they destroy. The mantispians (Mantis- 
padce)^ and the scorpion-flies {PanorpadcE), are also predaceous 
insects. 

5. — Lepidoptera {Butterflies and Moths). Mouth with 
a spiral sucking-tube ; wings four, covered with branny scales. 
Transformation complete. The larvae are caterpillars, and 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

have six true legs, and from four to ten fleshy prop-legs. Pupa 
with the cases of the wings and of the legs indistinct, and sol- 
dered to the breast. 

Some kinds of caterpillars are domestic pests, and devour cloth, 
wool, furs, feathers, wax, lard, flour, and the like ; but by far the 
greatest number live wholly on vegetable food, certain kinds being 
exclusively leaf-eaters, while others attack the buds, fruits, seeds, 
bark, pilh, stems, and roots of plants. 

6. — Hymenoptera {Saw-Jiies, Ants, Wasps, Bees, fyc). 
Insects with jaws, four veined wings, in most species, the hinder 
pair being the smallest, and a piercer or sting at the extremity of 
the abdomen. Transformation complete. Larvas mostly mag- 
got-like, or slug-like, of some, caterpillar-hke. Pupse with the 
legs and wings unconfined. 

In the adult state these insects live chiefly on the honey and pollen 
of flowers, and the juices of fruits. The larvae of the saw-flies ( Ten- 
thredinidce.), under the form of false-caterpillars and slugs, are leaf- 
eaters, and are oftentimes productive of much injury to plants. The 
larvae of the xyphydrians (Xiphydriad<2), and of the horn-tails ( C/roce- 
ridcB), are borers and wood-eaters, and consequently injurious to the 
plants inhabited by them. Pines and firs suffer most from their attacks. 
Some of the warty excrescences on the leaves and stems of plants, 
such as oak-apples, gall-nuts, and the like, arise from the punctures of" 
four-winged gall-flies {Diplolepidid(x), and the irritation produced by 
their larvae, which reside in these swellings. The injury caused by 
them is, comparatively, of very little importance, while, on the other 
hand, we are greatly indebted to these insects for the gall-nuts that 
are extensively used in coloring, and in medicine, and form the chief 
ingredient in ink. We may, therefore, write down these insects 
among the benefactors of the human race. Immense numbers of 
caterpillars and other noxious insects are preyed upon by internal 
enemies, the larvae of the ichneumon-flies {EvaniadcB, Ichneumonidce, 
and ChalcididcE), which live upon the fat of their victims, and finally 
destroy them. Some of these ichneumon-flies (Ichneumones ovulo- 
rum*) are extremely small, and confine their attacks to the eggs of 
other insects, which they puncture, and the little creatures produced 

* Now placed among the Proctotrupidce. 



14 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

from the latter find a sufficient quantity of food to supply all their 
wants within the larger eggs they occupy. The ruby-tails {Chrys- 
ididce), and the cuckoo-bees {Hylcsus, Sphecodes, Nomada, Melecta, 
Epeolus, CcBlioxys, and Stelis), lay their eggs in the provisioned nests 
of other insects, whose young are robbed of their food by the earlier 
hatched intruders, and are consequently starved to death. The wood- 
wasps (Crabronidce), and numerous kinds of sand-wasps (Larradce, 
Bemlicidce, SpegidcB, Pojnpilidce, and ScoliadcB), mud-wasps (Pe- 
lopczus), the stinging velvet-ants {Mut.illadcB), and the solitary wasps 
{Odynerus and Eumenes), are predaceous in their habits, and pro- 
vision their nests with other insects, , which serve for food to their 
young. The food of ants consists of animal and vegetable juices ; and 
thou^i these industrious little animals sometimes prove troublesome 
by their fondness for sweets, yet, as they seize and destroy many 
insects also, their occasional trespasses may well be forgiven. Even 
the proverbially irritable paper-making wasps and hornets (Polistes 
and Vespa), are not without their use in the economy of nature; for 
they feed their tender offspring not only with vegetable juices, but 
with the soft parts of other insects, great numbers of which they seize 
and destroy for this purpose. The solitary and social bees {Andre- 
nadcB and Apidcs) live wholly on the honey and pollen of flowers, 
and feed their young with a mixture of the same, called bee-bread. 
Various kinds of bees are domesticated for the sake of their stores of 
wax and honey, and are thus made to contribute directly to the com- 
fort and convenience of man, in return for the care and attention 
afforded them. Honey and wax are also obtained from several spe- 
cies of wild bees, {Melipona, Trigona, and Tetragona), essentially 
different from the domesticated kinds. While bees and other hymen- 
opterous insects seek only the gratification of their own inchnations, in 
their frequent visits to flowers, they carry on their bodies the yellow 
dust or pollen from one blossom to another, and scatter it over the 
parts prepared to receive and be fertilized by it, whereby they render 
an important service to vegetation. 

7. — DiPTERA {Mosquitos, Gnats, Flies, ^c). Insects with 
a horny or fleshy proboscis, two wings only, and two knobbed 
threads, called balancers or poisers, behind the wings. Transfor- 
mation complete. The larvae are maggots, without feet, and 
with the breathing-holes generally in the hinder extremity of the 
body. Pupse mostly incased in the dried skin of the larvse, some- 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

times, however, naked, in which case the wings and the legs are 
visible, and are found to be more or less free or unconfined. 

The two-winged insects, though mostly of moderate or small size, 
are not only very numerous in kinds or species, but also extremely 
abundant in individuals of the same kind, often appearing in swarms 
of countless multitudes. Flies are destined to live wholly on liquid 
food, and are therefore provided with a proboscis, enclosing hard and 
sharp-pointed darts, instead of jaws, and fitted for piercing and suck- 
ing, or ending with soft and fleshy lips for lapping. In our own per- 
sons we suffer much from the sharp suckers and blood-thirsty propen- 
sities of gnats and mosquitos ( CulicidcE), and also from those of certain 
midges [Ceralopogon and Simulium)^ including the tormenting black- 
flies (^Simulium molestum) of this country. The larvae of these insects 
live in stagnant water, and subsist on minute aquatic animals. Horse- 
flies and the golden-eyed forest-flies (TabanidcB), whose larvae live in 
the ground, and the stinging stable-flies {Slomoxi/s), which closely 
I'esemble common house-flies, and in the larva state live in dung, 
attack both man and animals, goading the latter sometimes almost to 
madness by their severe and incessant punctures. The winged horse- 
ticks [Hippoboscce], the bird-flies {Ornithomi/ice), the wingless sheep- 
ticks (Melophagi), and the spider-flies (Nycteribice), and bee-lice 
(^Braulce), which are also destitute of wings, are truly parasitical in 
their habits, and pass their whole lives upon the skin of animals. Bot- 
flies, or gad-flies, (CEstridce), as they are sometimes called, appear to 
take no food while in the winged state, and are destitute of a pro- 
boscis ; the nourishment obtained by their larvae, which, as is well 
known, live in the bodies of horses, cattle, sheep, and other animals, 
being sufficient to last these insects during the rest of their lives. 
Some flies, though apparently harmless in the winged state, deposit 
their eggs on plants, on the juices of which their young subsist, and 
are oftentimes productive of inunense injury to vegetation ; among 
these the most notorious for their depredations are the gall-gnats 
(Cecidomyics), including Uie wheat-fly and Hessian fly, the root- 
eating maggots of some of the long-legged gnats (Tipu/a), those of 
the flower-flies {AnthomyicB), and the two-winged gall-flies and fruit- 
flies (Ortalides). To this list of noxious flies, are to be added the 
common house-flies {Muscce)^ which pass through the maggot state in 
dung and other filth, the blue-bottle or blow-flies, and meat-flies 
{Lucilicz and CalUphorce), together with the maggot-producing or 



16 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

viviparous flesh-flies {Sarcophagce and CyiiomyicB)^ whose maggots 
live in flesh, the cheese-fly (Piophila), the parent of the well-known 
skippers, and a {ew others that in the larva state attack our household 
stores. Some flies are entirely harmless in all their states, and many 
are eminently useful in various ways. Even the common house-flies, 
and flesh-flies, together with others, for which no names exist in 
our language, render important services by feeding while larvse upon 
dung, carrion, and all kinds of filth, by which means, and by simi- 
lar services, rendered by various tribes of scavenger-beetles, these 
offensive matters speedily disappear, instead of remaining to decay 
slowly, thereby tainting the air and rendering it unwholesome. 
Those whose larvae live in stagnant water, such as gnats {Culicidce), 
feather-horned gnats {Chironomus, &c.), the soldier-flies (Slrati- 
omyadce), the rat- tailed flies [Helophilus, &c. &c.), tend to prevent 
the water from becoming putrid, by devouring the decayed animal 
and vegetable matter it contains. The maggots of some flies {Myce- 
tophilcE and various MuscadcB) live in mushrooms, toadstools, and 
similar excrescences growing on trees; those of others {Sargi, 
Xylophagidcz, Asilidce, T/ierev<z, Milesice, Xylotce, Borbori, &c. 
&c.), in rotten wood and bark, thereby joining with the grubs of 
certain beetles to hasten the removal of these dead and useless sub- 
stances, and make room for new and more vigorous vegetation. 
Some of these wood-eating insects, with others, when transformed to 
flies {AsilidcB, Rhagionidce, Dolichopidce, and Xylophagidce), prey 
on other insects. Some (SyrphidcB), though not predaceous them- 
selves in the winged state, deposit their eggs among plant-lice, upon 
the blood of which their young afterwards subsist. Many ( Cono- 
pidcE, excluding Stomoxys, Tachince, OcyptercB, PhorcB, &c.) lay 
their eggs on caterpillars, and on various other larvse, within the bodies 
of which the maggots hatched from these eggs live till they destroy 
their victims. And finally others {Anthracidce and Volucellce)^ drop 
their eggs in the nests of insects, whose offspring are starved to death, 
by being robbed of their food by the offspring of these cuckoo-flies. Be- 
sides performing their various appointed tasks in the economy of nature, 
flies, and other insects, subserve another highly important purpose, for 
which an all-wise Providence has designed them, namely, that of fur- 
nishing food to numerous other animals. Not to mention the various 
kinds of insect-eating quadrupeds, such as bats, moles, and the like, 
many birds live partly or entirely on insects. The finest song-birds, 
nightingales and thrushes, feast with the highest relish on maggots of 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

all kinds, as well as on flies and other insects, while the warblers, 
vireous, and especially the fly-catchers and swallows devour these 
two-winged insects in great numbers. 

The seven foregoing orders constitute very natural groups, 
relatively of nearly equal importance, and sufficiently distinct from 
each other, but connected at different points by various resem- 
blances. It is impossible to show the mutual relations of these 
orders, when they are arranged in a continuous series, but these 
can be better expressed and understood by grouping the orders 
together in a cluster, so that each order shall come in contact 
with several others. 

Besides these seven orders, there are several smaller groups, 
which some naturalists have thought proper to raise to the rank 
of independent orders. Upon the principal of these, a (ew 
remarks will now be made. 

The little order Strepsiptera of Kirby, or Rhipip- 
TERA of Latreille, consists of certain minute insects, which un- 
dergo their transformations within the bodies of bees and wasps. 
One of them, the Xenos Peckii^ was discovered by Professor 
Peck in the conmion brown wasp {Polistes fuscata) of this coun- 
try. The larva is maggot-like, and lives between the rings of the 
back of the wasp ; the pupa resembles that of some flies, and is 
cased in the dried skin of the larva. In the adult state the 
Strepsipterous insects have a pair of short, narrow, and twisted 
members, instead of fore- wings, and two very large hind- wings, 
folded lengthwise like a fan. The mouth is provided with a pair 
of slender, sharp-pointed jaws, better adapted for piercing than for 
biting. It is very difficult to determine the proper place of these 
insects in a natural arrangement. Latreille put them between the 
Lepidoptera and Diptera, but thinks them most nearly allied to 
some of the Hymenoptera. 

The flea tribe {Pulicid(E) was placed among the bugs, or 
Hemiptera, by Fabricius. It constitutes the order Aptera 
of Leach, Siphonaptera of Latreille, and Aphaniptera 
of Kirby. Fleas are destitute of wings, have a mouth fitted 
for suction, and provided with several lancet-like pieces for 
making punctures ; they undergo a complete transformation ; 
their larvae are worm-like and without feet ; and their pupae have 



18 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the legs free. These insects, of which there^fe many different 
kinds, are intermediate in their characteristics between the He- 
miptera and the Diptera, and seem to connect more closely these 
two orders together. 

The ear-wigs (Forficulada) , of which also there are many 
kinds, were placed by Linnaeus in the order Coleoptera, but most 
naturahsts now include them among the Orthoptera ; indeed they 
seem to be related to both orders, but most closely to the Orthop- 
tera, with which they agree in their partial transformations, and 
active pupae. They form the little order Dermaptera of 
Leach, or Euplexoptera of Westwood. 

The spider-flies, bird-flies, sheep-tick, &c. (Hippoboscad^), 
which, with Latreille and others, I have retained among the 
Diptera, form the order Homaloptera of Leach, and the 
English entomologists. 

The May-flies, or case-flies {Phryaneadce), have been separat- 
ed from the Neuroptera ; and constitute the order Trichop- 
tera of Kirby, Latreille and most of the naturalists of the 
continent of Europe still retain them in Neuroptera, to which 
they seem properly to belong. 

The order Bomboptera of MacLeay, was made to in- 
clude the horned-tailed wood-wasps (Urocerida), which, how- 
ever, are retained in the order Hymenoptera by all other natural- 
ists. In form and habits the larvae of these insects closely resem- 
ble the wood-eating larvae of some beetles. Certain intermediate 
groups connect them, however, with the saw-flies {Tenthredin- 
idce), and the latter, though truly Hymenopterous insects, ap- 
proach the Lepidoptera in the forms and habits of their larvae, or 
false caterpillars, and in the nature of their transformations. 

The Thrips tribe consists of minute insects more closely allied 
to Hemiptera than to any other order, but resembling, in some 
respects, the Orthoptera also. It forms the little order Thy- 
SANOPTERA of Haliday ; but I propose to leave it, as Latreille 
has done, among the Hemiptera. 

The English entomologists separate from Hemiptera the cica- 
das or harvest-flies, lantern-flies, frog-hoppers, plant-lice, bark- 
lice, &c., under the name of Homoptera; but these insects 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

seem too nearly to resemble the true Hemiptera to warrant the 
separation. 

Burmeister, a Prussian naturalist, has subdivided the Neu- 
roptera into the orders Neuroptera and Dictyotoptera, 
the latter to include the species which undergo only a par- 
tial transformation. If Hemiptera is to be subdivided, as above 
mentioned, then this division of Neuroptera will be justifiable 
also. 

Objections have often been raised against the study of natural 
history, and many persons have been discouraged from attempting 
it, on account of the formidable array of scientific names and 
terms, which it presents to the beginner ; and some men of mean 
and contracted minds have made themselves merry at the expense 
of naturalists, and have sought to bring the writings of the latter 
into contempt, because of the scientific language and names they 
were obliged to employ. Entomology, or the science that treats 
of insects, abounds in such names more than any other branch of 
natural history ; for the different kinds of insects very far outnum- 
ber the species in every class of the animal, vegetable, and min- 
eral kingdoms. It is owing to this excessive number of species, 
and to the small size, and unobtrusive character of many insects, 
that comparatively very few have received any common names, 
either in our own, or in other modern tongues ; and hence most 
of those that have been described in works of natural history, are 
known only by their scientific names. The latter have the ad- 
vantage over other names in being intelligible to all well-educated 
persons in all parts of the world ; while the common names of 
animals and plants in our own and other modern languages are 
very limited in their application, and moreover are often misap- 
plied. For example, the name weevil is given, in this country, 
to at least six different kinds of insects, two of which are moths, 
two are flies, and two are beetles. Moreover, since nearly four 
thousand species of weevils have actually been scientifically 
named and described, when mention is made of " the weevil", it 
may well be a subject of doubt to which of these four thousand 
species the speaker or writer intends to refer ; whereas, if the 
scientific name of the species in question were made known, this 
doubt would at once be removed. To give to each of these 



20 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

weevils a short, appropriate, significant, and purely English name 
would be very difficult, if not impossible, and there would be 
great danger of overburdening the memory with such a number of 
names ; but, by means of the ingenious and simple method of 
nomenclature invented by Linnaeus, these weevils are all arranged 
under three hundred and fifty-five generical, or sir names, requir- 
ing in addition, only a small number of difi:erent words, like 
christian names, to indicate the various species or kinds. There 
is oftentimes a great convenience in the use of single collective 
terms for groups of animals and plants, whereby the necessity for 
enumerating all the individual contents or the characteristics of 
these groups is avoided. Thus the single word Ruminantia 
stands for camels, lamas, giraffes, deer, antilopes, goats, sheep, 
and kine, or for all the hoofed quadrupeds, which ruminate or 
chew the cud, and have no front teeth in the upper jaw ; Lcjn- 
doptera includes all the various kinds of butterflies, hawk-moths, 
and millers or moths, or insects having wings covered with 
branny scales, and a spiral tongue instead of jaws, and whose 
young appear in the form of caterpillars. It would be diffi- 
cult to find or invent any single English words, which would 
be at once so convenient and so expressive. This, therefore, is 
an additional reason why scientific names ought to be preferred to 
all others, at least in works of natural history, where it is highly 
important that the objects described should have names that are 
short, significant in themselves, and not liable to be mistaken or 
misapplied. There is no art, profession, trade, or occupation, 
which can be taught or learned without the use of technical 
words or phrases belonging to each, and which, to the inexperi- 
enced and untaught, are as unintelligible as the terms of science. 
It is not at all more difficult to learn and remember the latter 
than the former, when the attention has been properly given to 
the subject. The seaman, the farmer, and the mechanic soon 
become familiar with the names and phrases peculiar to their 
several callings, uncouth, and without apparent signification, as 
many of them are. So too the terms of science lose their for- 
bidding and mysterious appearance and sound by the frequency 
of their recurrence, and finally become as harmonious to the ear, 
as they are clear and definite in their application. 



COLEOPTERA. 21 



COLEOPTERA. 

Beetles. — Scarab^ians. Ground-Beetles. Tree-Beetles. Cockchaf- 
ers or May-Beetles. Flower-Beetles. Stag-Beetles. — Buprestians, 
OR Saw-horned Borers. — Spring-Beetles. — Timber-Beetles. — Wee- 
vils. — Cylindrical Bark-Beetles. — Capricorn-Beetles, or Long-horn- 
ed Borers. — Leaf-Beetles. Criocerians. Leaf-mining Beetles. Tor- 
toise-Beetles. Chrysomelians. — Cantharides. 

The wings of beetles are covered and concealed by a pair of 
horny cases or shells, meeting in a straight line on the top of the 
back, and usually having a litde triangular or semicircular piece, 
called the scutel, wedged between their bases. Hence the order 
to which these insects belong is called Coleoptera, a word sig- 
nifying wings in a sheath. Beetles* are biting-insects, and are pro- 
vided with two pairs of jaws moving sidewise. Their young are 
grubs, and undergo a complete transformation in coming to maturity. 

At the head of this order Linnteus placed a group of insects, 
to which he gave the name of Scarab^eus. It includes the 
largest and most robust animals of the beetle kind, many of them 
remarkable for the singularity of their shape, and the formidable 
horn-like prominences with which they are furnished, — together 
with others, which, though they do not present the same impos- 
ing appearance, require to be noticed, on account of the injury 
sustained by vegetation from their attacks. An immense num- 
ber of Scarabseians (Scarab^id^.), as they may be called, 
are now known, differing greatly from each other, not only in 
structure, but in their habits in the larva and adult states. They 
are all easily distinguished by their short movable horns or an- 
tennae, ending with a knob, composed of three or more leaf-like 
pieces, which open like the petals of a flower-bud. Another 
feature that they possess in common, is the projecting ridge 
[Clypeus) of the forehead, which extends more or less over the 
face, like the visor or brim of a cap, and beneath the sides of this 
visor the antennae are implanted. The peculiar form of the fore- 
head in these insects seems to have given rise to the term beetle- 

* Beetle, in old English, hetl, hytl, or bitel, means a biter, or insect that bites. 



22 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

browed, applied to those persons who are remarkable for the 
prominence of their brows. Moreover, the legs of these beetles, 
particularly the first pair, are fitted for digging, being deeply 
notched, or furnished with several strong teeth on the outer 
edges ; and the feet are five-jointed. This very extensive family 
of insects is subdivided into several smaller groups, each com- 
posed of beetles distinguished by various peculiarities of structure 
and habits. Some live mostly upon or beneath the surface of the 
earth, and were, therefore, called ground-beetles by De Geer ; 
some, in their winged state are found on trees, the leaves of 
which they devour ; they are the tree-beetles of the same author ; 
and others, during the same period of their hves, frequent flowers, 
and are called flower-beetles. The ground-beetles, including the 
earth-borers {Geotrupidce), and dung-beetles {Coprididce and 
Jlphodiada)^ which, in all their states, are found in excrement, 
the skin-beetles {Trogida)^ which inhabit dried animal sub- 
stances, and the gigantic Hercules-beetles (Dynastida)^ which 
live in rotten wood or beneath old dung-heaps, must be passed 
over without further comment. The other groups contain insects 
that are very injurious to vegetation, and therefore require to be 
more particularly noticed. 

One of the most common, and the most beautiful of the tree- 
beetles of this country is the Areoda lanigera, or woolly Areoda, 
sometimes also called the goldsmith-beetle. It is about nine 
tenths of an inch in length, broad oval in shape, of a lemon-yellow 
color above, glittering like burnished gold on the top of the head 
and thorax ; the under-side of the body is copper-colored, and 
thickly covered with whitish vi^ool ; and the legs are brownish- 
yellow, or brassy, shaded with green. These fine beetles begin 
to appear in Massachusetts about the middle of May, and continue 
generally till the twentieth of June. In the morning and evening 
twilight they come forth from their retreats, and fly about with a 
humming and rustling sound among the branches of trees, the 
tender leaves of which they devour. Pear-trees are particularly 
subject to their attacks, but the elm, hickory, poplar, oak, and 
probably also other kinds of trees are frequented and injured by 
them. During the middle of the day they remain at rest upon 
the trees, clinging to the under-sides of the leaves ; and endeavour 



COLEOPTERA. 23 

to conceal themselves by drawing two or three leaves together, 
and holding them in this position with their long unequal claws. 
In some seasons they occur in profusion, and then may be ob- 
tained in great quantities by shaking the young trees on which 
they are lodged in the daytime, as they do not attempt to fly 
when thus disturbed, but fall at once to the ground. The larvae 
of these insects are not known ; probably they Hve in the ground 
upon the roots of plants. The group to which the goldsmith- 
beetle belongs may be called Rutilians (rutilad^e), from 
Rutela, or more correctly Rutila^ signifying shining, the name 
of the principal genus included in it. The Rutilians connect the 
ground-beetles with the tree-beetles of the following group, hav- 
ing the short and robust legs of the former, with the leaf-eating 
habits of the latter. 

The spotted Pelidnota, Peliclnota punctata^ is also arranged 
among the Rutilians. This large beetle is found on the culti- 
vated and wild grape-vine, sometimes in great abundance, during 
the months of July and August. It is of an oblong oval shape, 
and about an inch long. The wing-covers are tile-colored, or 
dull brownish yellow, with three distant black dots on each ; the 
thorax is darker, and slightly bronzed, with a black dot on each 
side ; the body beneath, and the legs, are of a deep bronzed green 
color. These beetles fly by day ; but may also be seen at the 
same time on the leaves of the grape, which are their only food. 
They sometimes prove very injurious to the vine. The only 
method of destroying them, is to pick them off by hand, and 
crush them under foot. The larvae live in rotten wood, such as 
the stumps and roots of dead trees ; and do not differ essentially 
from those of other Scarabaeians. 

Among the tree-beetles those commonly called dors, chafers, 
May-bugs, and rose-bugs, are the most interesting to the farmer 
and gardener, on account of their extensive ravages, both in the 
winged and larva states. They were included by EaJiricius in the 
genus Melolo7itha, a word used by the ancient Greeks to distin- 
guish the same kind of insects, which were supposed by them to 
be produced from or with the flowers of apple-trees, as the name 
itself implies. These beetles, together with many others, for 
which no common names exist in our language, are now united in 



'24 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

one family called melolonthad^, or Melolonthians. The fol- 
lowing are the general characters of these insects. The body is 
oblong oval, convex, and generally of a brownish color ; the 
antennae are nine or more commonly ten jointed, the knob is 
much longer in the males than in the females, and consists gener- 
ally of three leaf-like pieces, sometimes of a greater number, 
which open and shut like the leaves of a book ; the visor is short 
and wide ; the upper jaws are furnished at base on the inner side 
with an oval space, crossed by ridges, like a millstone, for grind- 
ing ; the thorax is transversely square, or nearly so ; the wing- 
cases do not cover the whole of the body, the hinder extremity of 
which is exposed ; the legs are rather long, the first pair armed 
externally with two or three teeth ; and the claws are notched be- 
neath, or are split at the end like the nib of a pen. The powerful 
and horny jaws are admirably fitted for cutting and grinding the 
leaves of plants, upon which these beetles subsist ; their notched 
or double claws support tWem securely on the foliage ; and their 
strong and jagged fore-legs, being formed for digging in the 
ground, point out the place of their transformations. 

The general habits and transformations of the common cock- 
chafer of Europe have been carefully observed, and will serve to 
exemplify those of the other insects of this family, which, as far 
as they are known, seem to be nearly the same. This insect de- 
vours the leaves of trees and shrubs. Its duration in the perfect 
state is very short, each individual living only about a week, and 
the species entirely disappearing in the course of a month. After 
the sexes have paired, the males perish, and the females enter the 
earth to the depth of six inches or more, making their way by 
means of the strong teeth which arm the fore-legs ; here they de- 
posit their eggs, amounting, according to some writers, to nearly 
one hundred, or, as others assert, to two hundred from each 
female, which are abandoned by the parent, who generally as- 
cends again to the surface, and perishes in a short time. 

From the eggs are hatched, in the space of fourteen days, little 
whitish grubs, each provided with six legs near the head, and a 
mouth furnished with strong jaws. When in a state of rest, these 
grubs usually curl themselves in the shape of a crescent. They 
subsist on the tender roots of various plants, committing ravages 



COLEOPTERA. 25 / 

among these vegetable substances, on some occasions of the most 
deplorable kind, so as totally to disappoint the best founded 
hopes of the husbandman. During the summer they live under 
the thin coat of vegetable mould near the surface, but, as winter 
approaches, they descend below the reach of frost, and )f,emain 
torpid until the succeeding spring, at which time they change 
their skins, and reascend to the surface for food. At the close of 
their third summer, (or, as some say, of the fourth or fifth,) they 
cease eating, and penetrate about two feet deep into the earth ; 
there, by its motions from side to side, each grub forms an oval 
cavity, which is lined by some glutinous substance thrown from its ' 
mouth. In this cavity it is changed to a pupa by casting off its 
skin. In this state, the legs, antennae, and wing-cases of the 
future beetle are visible through the transparent skin which en- 
velopes them, but appear of a yellowish white color ; and thus it 
remains until the month of February, when the thin film which 
encloses the body is rent, and three months afterwards the per- 
fected beetle digs its way to the surface, from which it finally 
emerges during the night. According to Kirby and Spence, the 
grubs of the cock- chafer sometimes destroy whole acres of grass 
by feeding on its roots. They undermine the richest meadows, 
and so loosen the turf that it will roll up as if cut by a turfing 
spade. They do not confine themselves to grass, but eat the roots 
of wheat, of other grains, and also those of young trees. About 
seventy years ago, a farmer near Norwich, in England, suffered 
much by them, and, with his man, gathered eighty bushels of the 
beetles. In the year 17S5 many provinces in France were so 
ravaged by them, that a premium was offered by government for 
the best mode of destroying them. The Society of Arts in 
London, during many years, held forth a premium for the best 
account of this insect, and the means of checking its ravages, but 
without having produced one successful claimant. 

In their winged state, these beetles, with several other species, 
act as conspicuous a part in injuring the trees, as the grubs do in 
destroying the herbage. During the month of May they come forth 
from the ground, whence they have received the name of May- 
bugs, or May-beetles. They pass the greater part of the day 
upon trees, chnging to the under-sides of the leaves, in a state of 



26 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

repose. As soon as evening approaches, they begin to buzz about 
among the branches, and continue on the wing till towards 
midnight. In their droning flight, they move very irregu- 
larly, darting hither and thither with an uncertain aim, hitting 
against objects in their way with a force that often causes them to 
fall to the ground. They frequently enter houses in the night, 
apparently attracted, as well as dazzled and bewildered, by the 
lights. Their vagaries, in which, without having the power to 
harm, they seem to threaten an attack, have caused them to be 
called dors, that is darers ; while their seeming blindness and 
stupidity have become proverbial, in the expressions, " bhnd as a 
beetle," and " beetle-headed". Besides the leaves of fruit-trees, 
they devour those of various forest-trees and shrubs, with an 
avidity not much less than that of the locust, so that, in certain 
seasons, and in particular districts, they become an oppressive 
scourge, and the source of much misery to the inhabitants. 
MoufFet relates that, in the year 1574, such a number of them fell 
into the river Severn, as to stop the wheels of the water-mills ; 
and, in the Philosophical Transactions, it is stated, that in the 
year 1688 they filled the hedges and trees of Galway, in such in- 
finite numbers as to cling to each other like bees when swarming ; 
and, when on the wing, darkened the air, annoyed travellers, and 
produced a sound like distant drums. In a short time, the leaves 
of all the trees, for some miles round, were so totally consumed 
by them, that at midsummer the country wore the aspect of the 
depth of winter. 

Another chafer, Anomala vitis F. is sometimes exceedingly 
injurious to the vine. It prevails in certain provinces of France, 
where it strips the vines of their leaves, and also devours those of 
the willow, poplar, and fruit-trees. 

The animals and birds appointed to check the ravages of these 
insects, are, according to Latreille, the badger, weasel, martin, 
bats, rats, the common dung-hill fowl, and the goat-sucker or 
night-hawk. To this list may be added the common crow, which 
devours not only the perfect insects, but their larvae, for which 
purpose it is often observed to follow the plough. In " Ander- 
son 'sRecreations," it is stated that "a cautious observer, having 
found a nest of five young jays, remarked, that each of these birds. 



COLEOPTERA. 27 

while yet very young, consumed at least fifteen of these full-sized 
grubs in one day, and of course would require many more of a 
smaller size. Say that, on an average of sizes, they consumed 
twenty a-piece, these for the five make one hundred. Each of the 
parents consume say nfty ; so that the pair and family devour two 
hundred every day. This, in three months, amounts to twenty 
thousand in one season. But as the grub continues in that state 
four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, without reck- 
oning their descendants after the first year, would destroy eighty 
thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half, namely forty thous- 
and, are females, and it is known that they usually lay about two 
hundred eggs each ; it will appear, that no less than eight millions 
have been destroyed, or prevented from being hutched, by the la- 
bors of a single family of jays. It is by reasoning in this way, that we 
learn to know of what importance it is to attend to the economy 
of nature, and to be cautious how we derange it by our short- 
sighted and futile operations." Our own country abounds with 
insect-eating beasts and birds, and without doubt the more than 
abun 'ant Melolonthas form a portion of their nourishment. 

In the year 1817, the Fabrician genus melolontha contained 
three hundred and f.ve known species, two hundred and twenty- 
six of which still retained that name, and seventy-nine were sep- 
arated into five distinct genera. A great number of new species 
have since ! een added to this list, which it has become necessary 
still further to subdivide. In a prize essay on the noxious insects 
of this genus, written by me in 1826, and published in the tenth 
volume of the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, 
several new genera were proposed, and the principal insects they 
were designed to include were pointed out. Several years after- 
wards it became known to me, that similar genera, founded on a 
consideration of the same insects, had been made by European 
naturalists, some of whom published the result of their investiga- 
tions before, and others after mine had appeared. Those of my 
names, therefore, that had been anticipated in point of time, must 
be dropped ; the others, I have thought proper to retain in the 
present essay. 

We have several Melolonthians whose injuries in the perfect 
and grub state approach to those of the European cock-chafer. 



28 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Phyllophaga* quercina of Knoch, the May-beetle, as it is gener- 
ally called here, is our common species. It is of a chestnut- 
brown color, smooth, but finely punctured, that is, covered with 
little impressed dots, as if pricked with the point of a needle ; 
each wing-case has two or three slightly elevated longitudinal lines ; 
the breast is clothed with yellowish down. The knob of its 
antennae contains only three leaf-like joints. Its average length is 
nine tenths of an inch. In its perfect state it feeds on the leaves 
of trees, particularly on those of the cherry-tree. It flies with a 
humming noise in the night, from the middle of May to the end of 
June, and frequently enters houses, attracted by the light. In the 
course of the spring, these beetles are often thrown from the earth 
by the spade and plough, in various states of maturity, some being 
soft and nearly white, their superabundant juices not having evap- 
orated, while others exhibit the true color and texture of the per- 
fect insect. The grubs devour the roots of grass and of other 
plants, and in many places the turf may be turned up like a carpet 
in consequence of the destruction of the roots. The grubf is a 
white worm with a brownish head, and, when fully grown, is 
nearly as thick as the little finger. It is eaten greedily by crows 
and fowls. The beetles are devoured by the skunk, whose bene- 
ficial foraging is detected in our gardens by its abundant excrement 
filled with the wing-cases of these insects. A writer in the 
" New York Evening Post " says, that the beetles, which fre- 
quently commit serious ravages on fruit-trees, may be effectually 
exterminated by shaking them from the trees every evening. In 
this way two pailsful of beetles were collected on the first experi- 
ment ; the number caught regularly decreased until the fifth even- 
ing, when only two beetles were to be found. The best time, 
however, for shaking trees on which the May-beetles are lodged, 
is in the morning, when the insects do not attempt to fly. They 
are most easily collected in a cloth spread under the trees to 

* A genus proposed by ine in 1826. It signifies leaf-eater. Oejean subsequently 
called this genus JincylonTjcha. 

t There is a grub, somewhat resembling tliis, which is frequently found under 
old manure heaps, and is commonly called muck- worm. It differs, however, in 
some respects, from that of the May-beetle, or dor-bug, and is transformed to a 
dung-beetle called ScnrnbcBus rclictus by Mr. Say. 



COLEOPTERA. 29 

receive them when they fall, after which, they should be thrown 
into boiling water, to kill them, and may then be given as food to 
swine. 

There is an undescribed kind of Phyllophaga^ or leaf-eater, 
called, in my Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts, *yraiernrt, 
because it is nearly akin to the guercina^ in general appearance. 
It differs from the latter, however, in being smaller, and more 
slender, the punctures on its thorax and wing-covers are not so 
distinct, and the three elevated lines on the latter are hardly visi- 
ble. It measures thirteen twentieths of an inch in length. This 
beetle may be seen in the latter part of June and the beginning of 
July. Its habits are similar to those of the more abundant May- 
beetle or dor-bug. 

Another common PhyUophaga has been described by Knoch 
and Say, under the name of hinicula, meaning a little hairy. It 
is of a bay-brown color, the punctures on the thorax are larger 
and more distinct than in the quercina^ and on each wing-cover 
are three longitudinal rows of short yellowish hairs It measures 
about seven tenths of an inch in length. Its time of appearance is 
in June and July. 

In some parts of Massachusetts the Phyllophaga Georgicana of 
Gyllenhal, or Georgian leaf-eater, takes the place of the quercina. 
It is extremely common, during May and June, in Cambridge, 
where the other species is rarely seen. It is of a bav-brown 
color, entirely covered on the upper side with very short yellow- 
ish gray hairs, and measures seven tenths of an inch, or more, in 
length. 

Phyllophaga pilosicollis of Knoch, or the hairy necked leaf- 
eater, is a small chafer, of an ochre yellow color, with a very 
hairy thorax. It is often thrown out of the ground by the spade, 
early in the spring ; but it does not voluntarily come forth till the 
middle of May. It measures half an inch in length. 

* In order to save unnecessary repetitions, it may be well to state, that the Cata- 
logue, above named, to which frequent reference will be made in the course of this 
essay, was drawn up by me, and was published in Professor Hitchcock's Report 
on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, and that two 
editions of it appeared with the Report, the first in 1833, and the second, with 
numerous additions, in 1835. 



30 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Hentz's Melolontha* variolosa^ or scarred Melolontha, differs 
essentially from the foregoing beetles in the structure of its an- 
tennae, t le knob of which consists of seven narrow strap-shaped 
ochre-yellow leaves, which are excessively long in the males. 
This fine insect is of a light-brown color, with irregular whitish 
blotches, like scars, on the thorax and wing-covers. It measures 
nine tenths of an inch, or more, in length. It occurs abundantly, 
in the month of July, at Martha's Vineyard, and in some other 
places near the coast ; but is rare in other parts of Massachusetts. 

The foregoing Melolonihians are found in gardens, nurseries, 
and ore ards, where they are more or less injurious to the fruit- 
trees, in proportion to their numbers in different seasons. They 
also devour the leaves of various forest-trees, such as the elm, 
maple, and oak. 

Omaloplia vespertina of Gyllenhal, and sericea of Illiger, attack 
the leaves of the sweetbriar, or sweet-leaved rose, on which they 
may be found in profusion in the evening, about the last of June. 
They somewhat resemble the May-beetles in form, but are pro- 
portionally shorter and thicker, and much smaller in size. The 
first of them, the vespertine or evening Omalopha, is bay-brown ; 
the wing-covers are marked with many longitudinal shallow fur- 
rows, which, with the thorax, are thickly punctured. This beetle 
varies in length from three to four tenths of an inch. Omaloplia 

* In my prize essay, before alluded to, I proposed lo restrict the genus Melolon- 
tha to those species that have more than three leaves in the knob of the antennsB, 
as in the variolosa, and the European ScarabcEus Melolontha of Linnaeus. This has 
actually been done by Latreille, but probably without being aware of my sugges- 
tion. It would have been better, however, to have given this genus some other 
name, instead of Melolontha, because this was first used by Linnssus as a specific 
name, which, according to the well known rule of priority, cannot be discontinued 
in its original application, without manifest injustice to the first describer. To 
continue the comparison made, on another page, between the names used in nat- 
ural history and those of persons, — insects, like ladies, may and do, frequently 
and repeatedly, change their generical or family names ; but there is no good or 
commendable authority for depriving either of them of their specific or baptismal 
names. I therefore propose to restore to the Melolontha of the ancients and of 
LinnEBUs, its original distinctfve or specific appellation, by calling it Polyphylla 
Melolontha, literally the many-leaved Melolontha, in allusion to the unusual num- 
ber of leaves in the knob of the antennae. Mr. Hentz's species will then become 
Polyphylla variolosa. 



COLEOPTERA. 31 

sericea, the silky Omaloplia, closely resembles the preceding in 
every thing but its color, which is a very deep chestnut-brown, 
iridescent or changeable like satin, and reflecting the colors of the 
rainbow. 

All these Melolonthians are nocturnal insects, never appearing, 
except by accident, in the day, during which they remain under 
shelter of the foliage of trees and shrubs, or concealed in the 
grass. Others are truly day-fliers, committing their ravages by 
the light of the sun, and are consequently exposed to observa- 
tion- 
One of our diurnal Melolonthians is supposed by many natural- 
ists to be the Jinomala varians of Fabricius ; and it agrees very 
well with this writer's description of the lucicola ; but Professor 
Germar thinks it to be an undescribed species, and proposes to 
name it ccelebs. It resembles the vine-chafer of Europe in its 
habits, and is found in the months of June and July on the culti- 
vated and wild grape-vines, the leaves of which it devours. Dur- 
ing the same period, these chafers may be seen in still greater 
numbers on various kinds of sumach, which they often completely 
despoil of their leaves. They are of a broad oval shape, and very 
variable in color. The head and thorax of the male are greenish- 
black, margined with dull ochre or tile-red, and thickly punc- 
tured ; the wing-covers are clay-yellow, irregularly furrowed, and 
punctured in the furrows ; the legs are pale red, brown, or black. 
The thorax of the female is clay-yellow, or tile-red, sometimes 
with two oblique blackish spots on the top, and sometimes almost 
entirely black ; the wing-covers resemble those of the male ; the 
legs are clay-yellow, or light red. The males are sometimes en- 
tirely black, and this variety seems to be the beetle called atrata, 
by Fabricius. The males measure nearly, and the females rather 
more than seven twentieths of an inch in length. In the year 
1825, these insects appeared on the grape-vines in a garden in 
this vicinity ; they have since established themselves on the spot, 
and have so much multiplied in subsequent years as to prove ex- 
ceedingly hurtful to the vines. In many other gardens they have 
also appeared, having probably found the leaves of the cultivated 
grape-vine more to their taste than their natural food. Should 
these beetles increase in numbers, thev will be found as difficult 



32 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

to check and extirpate as the destructive vine-chafers of Eu- 
rope. 

The rose-chafer, or rose-bug, as it is more commonly and 
incorrectly called, is also a diurnal insect. It is the Melolontha 
subspinosa of Fabricius, by whom it was first described, and be- 
longs to the modern ^enus* Macrodaclylus of Latreille. Common 
as this insect is in the vicinity of Boston, it is, or was a few years 
ago, unknown in the northern and western parts of Massachusetts, 
in New Hampshire, and in Maine. It may, therefore, be well to 
give a brief description of it. This beetle measures seven twen- 
tieths of an inch in length. Its body is slender, tapers before and 
behind, and is entirely covered with very short and close ashen- 
yellow down ; the thorax is long and narrow, angularly widened 
in the middle of each side, which suggested the name subspinosa, 
or somewhat spined ; the legs are slender, and of a pale red color ; 
the joints of the feet are tipped with black, and are very long, 
which caused Latreille to call the genus Macrodactylus^ that is 
long toe, or long foot. The natural history of the rose-chafer, 
one of the greatest scourges with which our gardens and nurseries 
have been afflicted, was for a long time involved in mystery, but 
is at last fully cleared up.f The prevalence of this insect on the 
rose, and its annual appearance coinciding with the blossoming of 
that flower, have gained for it the popular name by which it is 
here known. For some time after they were first noticed, rose- 
bugs appeared to be confined to their favorite, the blossoms of 
the rose ; but within thirty years they have prodigiously increased 
in number, have attacked at random various kinds of plants in 
swarms, and h^e become notorious for their extensive and de- 
plorable ravages. The grape-vine in particular, the cherry, 
plum, and apple trees, have annually suffered by their depreda- 
tions ; many other fruit-trees and shrubs, garden vegetables and 

^ Stenothorax, in my prize essay. 

1 See my essay in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, 
Vol. X. p. 8; reprinted in the New England Farmer, Vol. VI. p. 18, «&c. ; niy 
Discourse before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, p. 31, 8vo. Cambridge, 
1832. Dr. Greene's communication on this insect in the New England Farmer, 
Vol. VI. pp. 41,49, &LC., and my Report on Insects injurious to Vegetation, in 
Massachusetts, House Document, No. 72, April, 1838, p. 70. 



COLEOPTERA. 33 

corn, and even the trees of the forest and the grass of the fields, 
have been laid under contribution by these indiscriminate feeders, 
by whom leaves, flowers, and fruits are alike consumed. The 
unexpected arrival of these insects in swarms, at their first com- 
ing, and their sudden disappearance, at the close of their career, 
are remarkable facts in their history. They come forth from the 
ground during the second week in June, or about the time of the 
blossoming of the damask rose, and remain from thirty to forty 
days. At the end of this period the males become exhausted, 
fall to the ground, and perish, while the females enter the earth, 
lay their eggs, return to the surface, and, after lingering a few 
days, die also. The eggs laid by each female are about thirty in 
number, and are deposited from one to four inches beneath the 
surface of the soil ; they are nearly globular, whitish, and about 
one thirtieth of an inch in diameter, and are hatched twenty days 
after they are laid. The young larvae begin to feed on such ten- 
der roots as are within their reach. Like other grubs of the 
Scarabseians, when not eating, they lie upon the side, with the body 
curved so that the head and tail are nearly in contact ; they move 
with difficulty on a level surface, and are continually falling over on 
one side or the other. They attain their full size in the autumn, 
being then nearly three quarters of an inch long, and about an eighth 
of an inch in diameter. They are of a yellowish white color, with 
a tinge of blue towards the hinder extremity, which is thick and ob- 
tuse or rounded ; a few short hairs are scattered on the surface of 
the body ; there are six short legs, namely a pair to each of the first 
three rings behind the head ; and the latter is covered with a horny 
shell of a pale rust color. In October they desdfend below the 
reach of frost, and pass the winter in a torpid state. In the 
spring they approach towards the surface, and each one forms 
for itself a little cell of an oval shape, by turning round a great 
many times, so as to compress the earth and render the inside of 
the cavity hard and smooth. Within this cell the grub is trans- 
formed to a pupa, during the month of May, by casting off its 
skin, which is pushed downwards in folds from the head to the 
tail. The pupa has somewhat the form of the perfected beetle ; 
but it is of a yellowish white color, and its short stump-hke wings, 
its antennae, and its legs are folded upon the breast, and its whole 



34 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

body is enclosed in a thin film, that wraps each part separately. 
During the month of June this filmy skin is rent, the included 
beetle withdraws from it its body and its limbs, bursts open its 
earthen cell, and digs its way to the surface of the ground. Thus 
the various changes, from the egg to the full development of the 
perfected beetle, are completed within the space of one year. 

Such being the metamorphoses and habits of these insects, it is 
evident that we cannot attack them in the egg, the grub, or the 
pupa state ; the enemy, in these stages, is beyond our reach, and 
is subject to the control only of the natural but unknown means 
appointed by the Author of Nature to keep the insect tribes in 
check. When they have issued from their subterranean retreats, 
and have congregated upon our vines, trees, and other vegetable 
productions, in the complete enjoyment of their propensities, we 
must unite our efforts to seize and crush the invaders. They 
must indeed be crushed, scalded, or burned, to deprive them of 
life, for they are not affected by any of the applications usually 
found destructive to other insects. Experience has proved the 
utility of gathering them by hand, or of shaking them or brushing 
them from the plants into tin vessels containing a little water. 
They should be collected daily during the period of their visita- 
tion, and should be committed to the flames, or killed by scalding 
water. The late .John Lowell, Esq. states,* that in 1823, he dis- 
covered, on a solitary apple-tree, the rose-bugs "in vast numbers, 
such as could not be described, and would not be believed if they 
were described, or, at least, none but an ocular witness could con- 
ceive of their numbers. Destruction by hand was out of the ques- 
tion", in this "se. He put sheets under the tree, and shook them 
down, and burned them. Dr. Green, of Mansfield, whose investiga- 
tions have thrown much light on the history of this insect, proposes 
protecting plants with millinet, and says that in this way only did 
he succeed in securing his grape-vines from depredation. His 
remarks also show the utility of gathering them. " Eighty-six of 
these spoilers", says he, "were known to infest a single rose- 
bud, and were crushed with one grasp of the hand." Suppose, 
as was probably the case, that one half of them were females ; by 

* MassacJhusetts Agricultural Repository, Vol. IX. p. 145. 



COLEOPTERA. 35 

this destruction, eight hundred eggs, at least, were prevented from 
becoming matured. During the time of their prevalence, rose- 
bugs are sometimes found in immense numbers on the flowers of 
the common white-weed, or ox-eye daisy, (Chrysanthemum leu- 
canthemum) 1 a worthless plant, which has come to us from Europe, 
and has been suffered to overrun our pastures, and encroach on 
our mowing lands. In certain cases it may become expedient 
rapidly to mow down the infested white-weed in dry pastures, and 
consume it, with the sluggish rose-bugs, on the spot. 

Our insect-eating birds undoubtedly devour many of these 
insects, and deserve to be cherished and protected for their ser- 
vices. Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated fowls ; 
and when they become exhausted and fall to the ground, or when 
they are about to lay their eggs, they are destroyed by moles, 
insects, and other animals, which lie in wait to seize them. Dr. 
Green informs us, that a species of dragon-fly, or devil's needle 
devours them. He also says that an insect which he calls the 
enemy of the cut-worm, probably the larva of a Carabus or pre- 
daceous ground-beetle, preys on the grubs of the common dor- 
bug. In France the golden ground-beetle (Carabus auratus) 
devours the female dor or chafer at the moment when she is 
about to deposit her eggs. I have taken one specimen of this 
fine ground-beetle in Massachusetts, and we have several other 
kinds, equally predaceous, which probably contribute to check 
the increase of our native Melolonthians. 

There are several more tree-beetles in Massachusetts, which 
are injurious to vegetation ; but a mere description of them, with- 
out an account of their previous history, which is not yet fully 
known, would be of little use to the cultivator of the soil. 

Very few of the flower-beetles are decidedly injurious to vege- 
tation. Some of them are said to eat leaves ; but the greater 
number live on the pollen and the honey of flowers, or upon the 
sap that oozes from the wounds of plants. In the infant or grub 
state most of them eat only the crumbled substance of decayed 
roots and stumps ; a few hve in the wounds of trees, and by their 
depredations prevent them from heahng, and accelerate the decay 
of the trunk. The flower-beetles belong chiefly to a group called 
CETONiADiE, or Cctonians. They are easily distinguished from 



36 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the other Scarabseians by their lower jaws, which are gener- 
ally soft on the inside, and are often provided with a flat brush of 
hairs, that serves to collect the pollen and juices on which they 
subsist. Their upper jaws have no grinding plate on the inside. 
Their antennae consist of ten joints, the last three of which form a 
three-leaved oval knob. The head is often square, with a large 
and wide visor, overhanging and entirely concealing the upper- 
lip. The thorax is either rounded, somewhat square, or trian- 
gular. The wing-cases do not cover the end of the body. The 
fore-legs are deeply notched on the outer edge ; and the claws 
are equal and entire. These beetles are generally of an oblong 
oval form, somewhat flattened above, and often brilliantly colored 
and highly poHshed, sometimes also covered with hairs. Most 
of the bright-colored kinds are day-fliers ; those of dark and plain 
tints are generally nocturnal beetles. Some of them are of im- 
mense size, and have been styled the princes of the beetle tribes ; 
such are the Incas of South America, and the Goliah beetle 
(Hegemon Goliatus) of Guinea, the latter being more than four 
inches long, two inches broad, and thick and heavy in propor- 
tion. 

Two American Cetonians must suffice as examples in this 
group. The first is the Indian Cetonia, Cetonia Inda*^ one of our 
earliest visitors in the spring, making its appearance towards the 
end of April or the beginning of May, when it may sometimes be 
seen in considerable numbers around the borders of woods, and in 
dry open fields, flying just above the grass with a loud humming 
sound, like a humble-bee, for which perhaps it might at first sight 
be mistaken. Like other insects of the same genus, it has a 
broad body, very obtuse behind, with a triangular thorax, and a 
little wedge-shaped piece on each side between the hinder angles 
of the thorax and the shoulders of the wing-covers ; the latter, 
taken together, form an oblong square, but are somewhat notched 
or widely scalloped on the middle of the outer edges. The head 
and thorax of this beetle are dark copper- brown, or almost black, 
and thickly covered with short greenish yellow hairs ; the wing- 
cases are light yellowish brown, but changeable, with pearly and 

* Scar ab<Bus Indus o^lAnn^us, Cetonia harhata of Say. 



COLEOPTERA. 37 

metallic tints, and spattered with numerous irregular black spots ; 
the under-side of the body, which is very hairy, is of a black 
color, with the edges of the rings and the legs dull red. It meas- 
ures about six tenths of an inch in length. During the summer 
months the Indian Cetonia is not seen ; but about the middle of 
September a new brood comes forth, the beetles appearing fresh 
and bright, as though they had just completed their last transfor- 
mation. At this time they may be found on the flowers of the 
golden-rod, eating the pollen, and also in great numbers on corn- 
stalks, and on the trunks of the locust-tree, feeding upon the 
sweet sap of these .plants. On the approach of cold weather they 
disappear, but I have not been able to ascertain what becomes of 
them at this time, and only conjecture that they get into some 
warm and sheltered spot, where they pass the winter in a torpid 
state, and in the spring issue from their, retreats, and finish their 
career by depositing their eggs for another brood. Those that 
are seen in the spring want the freshness of the autumnal beetles, 
a circumstance that favors my conjecture. Their hovering over 
and occasionally dropping upon the surface of the ground is 
probably for the purpose of selecting a suitable place to enter the 
earth and lay their eggs. Hence I suppose that their larvae or 
grubs may live on the roots of herbaceous plants. 

The other Cetonian beetle to be described is the Osmoderma 
scaher*^ or rough Osmoderma. It is a large insect, with a broad 
oval and flattened body ; the thorax is nearly round, but wider 
than long ; there are no wedge-shaped pieces between the cor- 
ners of the thorax, and the shoulders of the wing-cases, and the 
outer edges of the latter are entire. It is of a purplish-black 
color, with a coppery lustre ; the head is punctured, concave or 
hollowed on the top, with the edge of the broad visor turned up 
in the males, nearly flat, and with the edge of the visor not raised 
in the females ; the wing-cases are so thickly and deeply and 
irregularly punctured as to appear almost as rough as shagreen ; 
the under-side of the body is smooth and without hairs ; and the 
legs are short and stout. In addition to the differences between 
the sexes above described, it may be mentioned that the females 

* Trichius scaber, Palisot de Beauvois ; Gymnodus scaber, Kirby. 



38 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are generally much larger than the males, and often want the cop- 
pery polish of the latter. They measure from eight tenths of an 
inch to one inch and one tenth in length. They are nocturnal 
insects, and conceal themselves during the day in the crevices 
and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows 
from the bark. They have the odor of Russia leather, and give 
this out so powerfully, that their presence can be detected, by the 
scent alone, at the distance of two or three yards from the place 
of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoder- 
ma, that is scented skin, given to these beetles by the French 
naturalists. They seem particularly fond of the juices of cherry 
and apple trees ; in the hollows of which I have often discovered 
them. Their larvae live in the hollows of these same trees, feed- 
ing upon the diseased wood, and causing it more rapidly to decay. 
They are whitish fleshy grubs, with a reddish hard-shelled head, 
and closely resemble the grubs of the common dor-beetle. In 
the autumn each one makes an oval cell or pod, of fragments of 
wood, strongly cemented with a kind of glue ; it goes through its 
transformation within this cell, and comes forth in the beetle form 
in the month of July. 

We have another scented beetle, equal in size to the preced- 
ing, of a deep mahogany-brown color, perfectly smooth, and 
highly polished, and the male has a deep pit before the middle of 
the thorax. This species of Osmoderma is called eremicola*, a 
name that cannot be rendered literally into English by any single 
word ; it signifies wilderness-inhabitant, for which might be sub- 
stituted hermit. I believe that this insect lives in forest-trees, 
but the larva is unknown to me. 

The family LucanidjE, or Lucanians, so named from the Lin- 
nsean genus Lucanus, must be placed next to the Scarabseians in a 
natural arrangement. This family includes the insects called stag- 
beetles, horn-bugs, and flying-bulls, names that they have obtained 
from the great size and peculiar form of their upper jaws, which 
are sometimes curved like the horns of cattle, and sometimes 
branched like the antlers of a stag. In these beetles the body is 
hard, oblong, rounded behind, and slightly convex ; the head is 

* Cetonia eremicola of Knoch. 



COLEOPTERA. 39 

large and broad, especially in the males ; the thorax is short, and 
as wide as the abdomen ; the antennae are rather long, elbowed or 
bent in the middle, and composed of ten joints, the last three or 
four of which are broad, leaf-like, and project on the inside, giv- 
ing to this part of the antennae a resemblance to the end of a key ; 
the upper jaws are usually much longer in the males than in the 
females, but even those of the latter extend considerably beyond 
the mouth ; each of the under-jaws is provided with a long hairy 
pencil or brush, which can be seen projecting beyond the mouth 
between the feelers ; and the under-lip has two shorter pencils of 
the same kind ; the fore-legs are oftentimes longer than the 
others, with the outer edge of the shanks notched into teeth ; the 
feet are five-jointed, and the nails are entire and equal. These 
beetles fly abroad during the night, and frequently enter houses at 
that time, somewhat to the alarm of the occupants ; but they are 
not venomous, and never attempt to. bite without provocation. 
They pass the day on the trunks of trees, and live upon the sap, %ik 
for procuring which the brushes of their jaws and lip seem to be 
designed. They are said also occasionally to bite and seize cater- 
pillars and other soft-bodied insects, for the purpose of sucking 
out their juices. They lay their eggs in crevices of the bark of 
trees, especially near the roots, where they may sometimes be 
seen thus employed. The larvas hatched from these eggs resem- 
ble the grubs of the Scarabseians in color and form, but they are 
smoother, or not so much wrinkled. The grubs of the large 
kinds are said to he six years in coming to their growth, living all 
this time in the trunks and roots of trees, boring into the solid 
wood, and reducing it to a substance resembling very coarse saw- 
dust ; and the injury thus caused by them is frequently very con- 
siderable. When they have arrived at their full size, they enclose 
themselves in egg-shaped pods, composed of gnawed particles of 
wood and bark stuck together and lined with a kind of glue ; 
within these pods they are transformed to pupse, of a yellowish- 
white color, having the body and all the limbs of the future beetle 
encased in a whitish film, which being thrown off in due time, the 
insects appear in the beetle form, burst the walls of their prison, 
crawl through the passages the larvse had gnawed, and come forth 
on the outside of the trees. 



40 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The largest of these beetles in the New England States, was 
first described by Linnseus under the name o( Lucanus Capreolus*, 
signifying the young roe-buck ; but here it is called the horn-bug. 
Its color is a deep mahogany-brown ; the surface is smooth and 
polished ; the upper jaws of the male are long, curved like a sickle, 
and furnished internally beyond the middle with a little tooth ; 
those of the female are much shorter, and also toothed ; the head 
of the male is broad and smooth, that of the other sex narrower 
and rough with punctures. The body of this beetle measures 
from one inch to one inch and a quarter, exclusive of the jaws. 
The time of its appearance is in July and the beginning of 
August. The grubs live in the trunks and roots of various kinds 
of trees, but particularly in those of old apple-trees, willows, and 
oaks. 

Several other and smaller kinds of stag-beetles are found in 
New England, but their habits are much the same as those of the 
more common horn-bug. 

All the foregoing beetles have, by some naturalists, been gath- 
ered into a single tribe, called lamellicorn or leaf-horned beetles, 
on account of the leaf-hke joints wherewith the end of their an- 
tennae is provided. In like manner, the beetles, next to be de- 
scribed, have been brought together into one great tribe, named 
serricorn or saw-horned beetles, because the tips of the joints of 
their antennas usually project more or less on the inside, some- 
what like the teeth of a saw. The beetles belonging to the family 
BupRESTiD^, or the Buprestians, have antennae of this kind. 
The Bnprestis of the ancients, as its name signifies in Greek, was 
a poisonous insect, which, being swallowed with grass by grazing 
cattle, produced a violent inflammation, and such a degree of 
swelling, as to cause the cattle to burst. Linnaeus, however, un- 
fortunately applied this name to the insects of the abovemen- 
tioned family, none of which are poisonous to animals, and are 
rarely, if ever, found upon the grass. It is in allusion to the ori- 
ginal signification of the word Buj)resiis, that popular English 
writers on natural history, sometimes give the name of burncow 
to the harmless Buprestians ; while the French, with greater 

* Lucanus Dama of Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. 41 

propriety call them richards, on account of the rich and brilliant 
colors wherewith many of them are adorned. The Buprestians, 
then, according to the Linnsean application or rather misapplica- 
tion of the name, are hard-shelled beetles, often brilliantly col- 
ored, of an elliptical or oblong oval form, obtuse before, tapering 
behind, and broader than thick, so that, when cut in two trans- 
versely, the section is oval. The head is sunk to the eyes in the 
forepart of the thorax ; and the antennae are rather short, and 
notched on one side like the teeth of a saw. The thorax is 
broadest behind, and usually fits very closely to the shoulders of 
the wing-covers. The legs are rather short, and the feet are 
formed for standing firmly, rather than for rapid motion ; the 
soles being composed of four rather wide joints, covered with lit- 
tle spongy cushions beneath, and terminated by a fifth joint, 
which is armed with two claws. Most beetles, as already stated, 
have a little triangular piece, called the scutel, wedged between 
the bases of the wing-covers and the hinder part of the thorax, 
commonly of a triangular or semicircular form, and in the greater 
number of coleopterous insects quite conspicuous ; in the Bupres- 
tians, however, the scutel is generally very small, and sometimes 
hardly perceptible. These beetles are frequently seen on the 
trunks and limbs of trees basking in the sun. They walk slowly, 
and, at the approach of danger, fold up their legs and antennae and 
fall to the ground. Being furnished with ample wings, their flight 
is swift and attended with a whizzing noise. They keep con- 
cealed in the night, and are in motion only during the day. 

The larvae are wood-eaters or borers. Our forests and orchards 
are more or less subject to their attacks, especially after the trees 
have passed their prime. The transformations of these insects 
take place in the trunks and limbs of trees. The larvae that are 
known to me have a close resemblance to each other ; a general 
idea of them can be formed from a description of that which 
attacks the pig-nut hickory. It is of a yellowish white color, very 
long, narrow, and depressed in form, but abruptly widened near 
the anterior extremity. The head is brownish, small, and sunk in 
the forepart of the first segment ; the upper jaws are provided with 
three teeth, and are of a black color ; and the antennae are very 
short. The segment which receives the head is short and trans- 
6 



42 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

verse ; next to it is a large, oval segment, broader than long, and 
depressed or flattened above and beneath. Behind this, the seg- 
ments are very much narrowed, and become gradually longer; 
but are still flattened, to the last, which is terminated by a round- 
ed tubercle or wart. There are no legs, nor any apparatus which 
can serve as such, except two small warts on the under-side of 
the second segment from the thorax. The motion of the grub 
appears to be effected by the alternate contractions and elonga- 
tions of the segments, aided, perhaps, by the tubercular extremity 
of the body, and by its jaws, with which it takes hold of the sides 
of its burrow, and thus draws itself along. These grubs are found 
under the bark and in the solid wood of trees, and sometimes, in 
great numbers. They frequently rest with the body bent side- 
wise, so that the head and tail approach each other. This pos- 
ture those found under bark usually assume. They appear to 
pass several years in the larva state. The pupa bears a near re- 
semblance to the perfect insect, but is entirely white, until near 
the time of its last transformation. Its situation is immediately 
under the bark, the head being directed outwards, so that when 
the pupa-coat is cast off, the beetle has merely a thin covering of 
bark to perforate, before making its escape from the tree. The 
form of this perforation is oval, as is also a transverse section of 
the burrow, that shape being best adapted to the form, motions, 
and egress of the insect. 

Some of these beetles are known to eat leaves and flowers, and 
of this nature is probably the food of all of them. The injury 
they may thus commit is not very apparent, and cannot bear any 
comparison with the extensive ravages of their larvae. The solid 
trunks and limbs of sound and vigorous trees are often bored 
through in various directions by these insects, which, during a 
long-continued life, derive their only nourishment from the woody 
fragments they devour. Pines and firs seem particularly subject 
to their attacks, but other forest-trees do not escape, and even 
fruit-trees are frequently injured by these borers. The means 
to be used for destroying them are similar to those employ- 
ed against other borers, and will be explained in a subsequent 
part of this essay. It may not be amiss, however, here to 
remark, that wood-peckers are much more successful in discover- 



COLEOPTERA. 4S 

ing the retreats of these borers, and in dragging out the defence- 
less culprits from their burrows, than the most skilful gardener or 
nurseryman. 

Until within a few years the Buprestians were all included in 
three or four genera. A great number of kinds have now become 
known, probably six hundred or more. In a paper on these 
insects, published by me in 1829, in the beginning of the eighth 
volume of the " New England Farmer," the characters of several 
groups were pointed out ; these have since been made into 
genera, and many more new generical groups have been proposed 
and described by European naturalists. As the insects belonging 
to the greater number of these new genera do not differ essen- 
tially from each other in their habits and transformations, I have 
retained most of them in the old genus Buprestis, but have indi- 
cated the new groups by enclosing the names given to them 
within parentheses. 

The largest of these beetles in this part of the United States is 
the Bupresds (Chalcophora) Virginica of Drury, or Virginian 
Buprestis. It is of an oblong oval form, brassy, or copper-colored ; 
sometimes almost black, with hardly any metallic reflections. 
The upper side of the body is roughly punctured ; the top of the 
head is deeply indented ; on the thorax there are three polished 
black elevated lines ; on each wing-cover are two small square 
impressed spots, a long elevated smooth black line near the outer, 
and another near the inner n)argin, with several short lines of the 
same kind between them ; the under-side of the body is sparingly 
covered with short whitish dovyn. It measures from eight tenths 
of an inch to one inch or more in length. This beetle appears 
towards the end of May, and through the month of .Tune, on pine- 
trees and on fences. In the larva state it bores into the trunks of 
the different kinds of pines, and is oftentimes very injurious to 
these trees. 

The wild cherry-tree {Prunus serotina), and also the gar- 
den cherry and peach trees suffer severely from the attacks of 
borers, which are transformed to the beetles called Buprestis (Di- 
cerca) divaricaia by Mr. Say, because the wing-covers divaricate 
or spread apart a little at the tips. These beetles are copper- 
colored, sometimes brassy above, and thickly covered with little 



44 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

punctures ; the thorax is slightly furrowed in the middle ; the 
wing-covers are marked with numerous fine irregular impressed 
lines and small oblong square elevated black spots ; they taper 
very much behind, and the long and narrow tips are blunt-pointed : 
the middle of the breast is furrowed ; and the males have a little 
tooth on the under-side of the shanks of the intermediate legs. 
They measure from seven to nine tenths of an inch. These 
beetles may be found sunning themselves upon the limbs of cherry 
and peach trees during the months of June, July, and August. 

The borer of the hickory has already been described. It is 
transformed to a beetle which appears to be the Bwprcstis {Di- 
cerca) lurida* of Fabricius. It is of a lurid or dull brassy-color 
above, bright copper beneath, and thickly punctured all over ; 
there are numerous irregular impressed lines, and several narrow 
elevated black spots on the wing-covers, the tip of each of which 
ends with two little points. It measures from about six to eight 
tenths of an inch in length. This kind of Euprestis appears dur- 
ing the greater part of the summer on the trunks and limbs of the 
hickory. 

Buprestis (Chrysobothris) dentipes-f of Germar, so named from 
the little tooth on the under-side of the thick fore-legs, inhabits 
the trunks of oak-trees. It completes its transformations and 
comes out of the trees between the end of May and the first of 
July. It is oblong oval and flattened, of a bronzed brownish or 
purplish black color above, copper-colored beneath, and rough 
like shagreen 'with numerous punctures; the thorax is not so 
wide as the hinder part of the body, its hinder margin is hollowed 
on both sides to receive the rounded base of each wing-cover, and 
there are two smooth elevated lines on the middle ; on each wing- 
cover there are three irregular smooth elevated lines, which are 
divided and interrupted by large thickly punctured impressed 
spots, two of which are oblique ; the tips are rounded. Length 
from one half to six tenths of an inch. 

Buprestis ( Chrysohothris) femorata of Fabricius has the first 
pair of thighs toothed beneath, like the preceding, which it resem- 

* Buprestis obscura, F., found in the Middle and Soulliern States, closely resep- 
bles the lurida. 

t Buprestis characteristica, Harris. N. E. Farmer, Vol. viii. p. 2. 



COLEOPTERA. 45 

bles also in its form and general appearance. It is of a greenish 
black color above, with a brassy polish, which is very distinct in 
the two large transverse impressed spots on each wing-cover ; 
and the thorax has no smooth elevated lines on it. It measures 
from four tenths to above half of an inch in length. Its time of 
appearance is from the end of May to the middle of July, during 
which it may often be seen, in the middle of the day, resting upon 
or flying round the trunks of white oak trees, and recently cut 
timber of the same kind of wood. I have repeatedly taken it 
upon and under the bark of peach-trees also. The grubs or larvae 
bore into the trunks of these trees. 

The Bupresiis (Chrysobothris) fulvogvttata,* or tawny spotted 
Buprestis, first described by me in the eighth volume of the " New 
England Farmer," is proportionally shorter and more convex than 
the two foregoing species. It is black and bronzed above, and 
brassy beneath ; the thorax is covered vvith very fine wavy trans- 
verse lines, and is sometimes copper-colored ; the wing-covers 
are thickly punctured, and on each there are three small tawny 
yellow spots, with sometimes an additional one by the side of the 
first spot ; the tips are rounded, and the fore-legs are not toothed. 
It varies very much in size, measuring from about three to four 
tenths of an inch in length. I have taken this insect from the 
trunks of the white pine in the month of June, and have seen 
others that were found in the Oregon Territory. 

Professor Hentz has described a small and broad beetle having 
the form of the above, under the name of Buprestis (Chrysoboth- 
7'is) Harrisii. It is entirely of a brilliant blue-green color, except 
the sides of the thorax, ?ind the thighs, which, in the male, are 
copper-colored. It measures a little more than three tenths of an 
inch in length. The larvae of this species inhabit the small limbs 
of the white pine, and young sapling trees of the same kind, upon 
which I have repeatedly captured the beetles about the middle of 
June. 

These seven species form but a very small part of the Bupres- 
tians inhabiting Massachusetts and the other New England States. 

* Mr. Kirby has redescribed and figured this insect under the name of Bvprcstis 
(Trachypteris) Drummondi, in the fourth volume of the " Fauna Boreali- Ameri- 
cana." 



46 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

My knowledge of the habits of the others is not sufficiently per- 
fect to render it worth while to insert descriptions of them here. 
The concealed situation of the grubs of these beetles, in the 
trunks and limbs of trees, renders it very difficult to discover and 
dislodge them. When trees are found to be very much infested 
by them, and are going to decay in consequence of the ravages of 
these borers, it will be better to cut them down, and burn them 
immediately, rather than to suffer them to stand until the borers 
have completed their transformations and made their escape. 

Closely related to the Buprestians are the Elaters, or spring- 
beetles (Elaterid^), which are well known by the faculty they 
have of throwing themselves upwards with a jerk, when laid on 
their backs. On the under-side of the breast, between the bases 
of the first pair of legs, there is a short blunt spine, the point of 
which is usually concealed in a corresponding cavity behind it. 
When the insect, by any accident, falls upon its back, its legs are 
so short, and its back is so convex, that it is unable to turn itself 
over. It then folds its legs close to its body, bends back the 
head and thorax, and thus unsheaths its breast-spine ; then by 
suddenly straightening its body, the point of the spine is made to 
strike with force upon the edge of the sheath, which gives it the 
power of a spring, and reacts on the body of the insect, so as to 
throw it perpendicularly into the air. When it again falls, if it 
does not come down upon its feet, it repeats its exertions until its 
object is effected. In these beetles the body is of a hard con- 
sistence, and is usually rather narrow and tapering behind. The 
head is sunk to the eyes in the forepart of the thorax ; the an- 
tennae are of moderate length, and more or less notched on the 
inside like a saw. The thorax is as broad at base as the wing- 
covers, it is usually rounded before, and the hinder angles are 
sharp and prominent. The scutel is of moderate size. The legs 
are rather short and slender, and the feet are five-jointed. 

The larvae or grubs of the Elaters live upon wood and roots, 
and are often very injurious to vegetation. Some are confined to 
old or decaying trees, others devour the roots of herbaceous 
plants. In England they are called wire-worms, from their slen- 
derness and uncommon hardness. They are not to be confounded 
with the American wire-worm, a species of lulus, which is not a 



COLEOPTERA. 47 

true insect, but belongs to the class Myriapoda, a name derived 
from the great number of feet with which most of the animals 
included in it are furnished ; whereas the English wire-worm has 
only six feet. The European wire-worm is said to live, in its 
feeding or larva state, not less than five years ; during the greater 
part of which time it is supported by devouring the roots of 
wheat, rye, oats, and grass, annually causing a large diminution of 
the produce, and sometimes destroying whole crops. It is said to 
be particularly injurious in gardens recently converted from pas- 
ture lands. We have several grubs allied to this destructive 
insect, which are quite common in land newly broken up ; but 
fortunately, as yet, their ravages are inconsiderable. We may 
expect these to increase in proportion as we disturb them and de- 
prive them of their usual articles of food, while we continue also 
to persecute and destroy their natural enemies, the birds, and 
may then be obliged to resort to the ingenious method adopted by 
European farmers and gardeners for alluring and capturing these 
grubs. This method consists in strewing sliced potatoes or tur- 
nips in rows through the garden or field ; women and boys are 
employed to examine the slices every morning, and collect the 
insects which readily come to feed upon the bait. Some of these 
destructive insects, which I have found in the ground among the 
roots of plants, were long, slender, worm-like grubs, closely re- 
sembling the common meal-worm ; they were nearly cylindrical, 
with a hard and smooth skin, of a buff or brownish yellow color, 
the head and tail only being a little darker ; each of the first three 
rings was provided with a pair of short legs ; the hindmost ring 
was longer than the preceding one, was pointed at the end, and 
had a little pit on each side of the extremity ; beneath this part 
there was a short retractile wart, or prop-leg, serving to support 
the extremity of the body, and prevent it from trailing on the 
ground. Other grubs of Elaters differ from the foregoing in being 
proportionally broader, not cylindrical, but somewhat flattened, 
with a deep notch at the extremity of the last ring, the sides of 
which are beset with little teeth. Such grubs are mostly wood- 
eaters, devouring the woody parts of roots, or living under the 
bark and in the trunks of old trees. 

After their last transformation, Elaters or spring-beetles make 



48 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

their appearance upon trees and fences, and some are found on 
flowers. They creep slowly, and generally fall to the ground on 
being touched. They fly both by day and night. Their food, in 
the beetle states, appears to be chiefly derived from flowers ; but 
some devour the tender leaves of plants. Most of the insects of 
this family were included in the genus Elater, which has recently 
been subdivided into many smaller groups. These, in the few 
species which I propose to describe, will be indicated by having 
their names enclosed within parentheses. 

The largest of our spring-beetles is the Elater [Alaus] ocula- 
tus, of Linnaeus. It is of a black color ; the thorax is oblong 
square, and nearly one third the length of the whole body, cov- 
ered above with •& whitish powder, and with a large oval velvet- 
black spot, hke an eye, on each side of the middle, from which 
the insect derives its name oculatus, or eyed ; the wing-covers are 
marked with slender longitudinal impressed lines, and are sprinkled 
with numerous white dots ; the under-side of the body, and the 
legs, are covered with a white mealy powder. This large beetle 
measures from one inch and a quarter to one inch and three quar- 
ters in length. It is found on trees, fences, and the sides of 
buildings, in June and July. It undergoes its transformations in 
the trunks of trees. I have found many of them in old apple- 
trees, together with their larvae, which eat the wood, and from 
which I subsequently obtained the insects in the beetle state. 
These larvae are reddish yellow grubs, proportionally much 
broader than the other kinds, and very much flattened. One of 
them, which was found fully grown early in April, measured two 
inches and a half in length, and nearly four tenths of an inch 
across the middle of the body, and was not much narrowed at 
either extremity. The head was broad, brownish, and rough 
above ; the upper jaws or nippers were very strong, curved, and 
pointed ; the eyes were small and two in number, one being 
placed at the base of each of the short antennae ; the last segment 
of the body was blackish, rough with little sharp-pointed warts, 
with a deei^ semicircular notch at the end, and furnished around 
the sides with little teeth, the two hindmost of which were long, 
forked, and curved upwards like hooks ; under this segment was 
a large retractile fleshy prop-foot, armed behind with little claws. 



COLEOPTERA. 49 

and around the sides with short spines ; the true legs were six, a 
pair to each of the first three rings ; and were tipped with a single 
claw. Soon after this grub was found it cast its skin and became 
a pupa, and in due time the latter was transformed to a beetle. 

Elater (Fyrophorus) noctilucus, the night-shining Elater, is the 
celebrated cucuio or fire-beetle of the West Indies, from whence 
it is frequently brought alive to this country. It resembles the 
preceding insect somewhat in form, and is an inch or more in 
length. It gives out a strong light from two transparent eye-like 
spots on the thorax, and from the segments of its body beneath. 
It eats the pulpy substance of the sugar-cane, and its grub is said 
to be very injurious to this plant, by devouring its roots. 

The next two common Elaters, together with several other 
species, are distinguished by their claws, which resemble little 
combs, being furnished with a row of fine teeth along the under- 
side. The thorax is short and rounded before, and the body 
tapers behind. They are found under the bark of trees, where 
they pass the winter, having completed their transformations in the 
previous autumn. Their grubs live in wood. The first of these 
beetles is the ash-colored Elater, Elater (Melanotus) cinereus of 
Weber. It is about six tenths of an inch long, and is dark 
brown, but covered with short gray hairs, which give it an ashen 
hue ; the thorax is convex ; and the wing-covers are marked 
with lines of punctures, resembling stitches. It is found on fen- 
ces, the trunks of trees, and in paths, in April and May. 

Elater (Melanotus) communis of Schonherr, is, as its name im- 
plies, an exceedingly common and abundant species. It closely 
resembles the preceding, but is smaller, seldom exceeding half an 
inch in length ; it is also rather fighter colored ; the thorax is 
proportionally a little longer, not so convex, and has a slender 
longitudinal furrow in the middle. This Elater appears in the 
same places as the cinereus in April, May, and June ; and the 
recently transformed beetles can also be found in the autumn un- 
der the bark of trees, where they pass the winter. 

Another kind of spring-beetle, which absolutely swarms in 

paths and among the grass during the warmest and brightest days 

in April and May, is the Elater [Ludius) appressifrons of Say. 

Its specific name probably refers to the front of the head or visor 

7 



50 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

being pressed downwards over the lip. The body is slender and 
almost cylindrical, of a deep chestnut-brown color, rendered gray, 
however, by the numerous short yellowish hairs with which it is 
covered ; the thorax is of moderate length, not much narrowed 
before, convex above, with very long and sharp-pointed hinder 
angles, and in certain lights has a brassy hue ; the wing-covers 
are finely punctured, and have very slender impressed longitudinal 
lines upon them ; the claws are not toothed beneath. This 
beetle usually measures from four to five tenths of an inch in 
length ; but the females frequently greatly exceed these dimen- 
sions, and, being much more robust, with a more convex thorax, 
were supposed by Mr. Say to belong to a different species, named 
by him brevicornis, the short-horned. The larvas are not yet 
known to me ; but I have strong reasons for thinking that they 
live in the ground upon the roots of the perennial grasses and 
other herbaceous plants. 

Although above sixty different kinds of spring-beetles are now 
known to inhabit Massachusetts, I shall add to the foregoing a 
description of only one more species. This is the Elater [j4gri- 
otes) obesus of Say. It is a short and thick beetle, as the specific 
name implies ; its real color is a dark brown, but it is covered 
with dirty yellowish gray hairs, which on the wing-covers are 
arranged in longitudinal stripes ; the head and thorax are thickly 
punctured, and the wing-covers are punctured in rows. Its 
length is about three tenths of an inch. This beetle closely re- 
sembles one of the kinds, which, in the grub state, is called the 
wire-worm in Europe, and possibly it may be the same. This 
circumstance should put us on our guard against its depredations. 
It is found in April, May, and June, among the roots of grass, on 
the under-side of boards and rails on the ground, and sometimes 
also on fences. 

The utility of a knowledge of the natural history of insects in 
the practical arts of life was never more strikingly and triumphantly 
proved than by Linnaeus himself, who, while giving to natural 
science its language and its laws, neglected no opportunity to 
point out its economical advantages.* On one occasion this great 

* See the preface to Smith's " Introduction to Botany," and Pulteney's " View of 
the Writings of Linnaeus" for several examples, one of which it may not be amiss 



COLEOPTERA. 51 

naturalist was consulted by the King of Sweden upon the cause of 
the decay and destruction of the ship-timber in the royal dock- 
yards, and, having traced it to the depredations of insects, and 
ascertained the history of the depredators, by directing the timber 
to be sunk under water during the season when these insects made 
their appearance in the winged state, and were busied in laying 
their eggs, he effectually secured it from future attacks. The 
name of these insects is Lymexylon navale, the naval timber- 
destroyer. They have since increased to an alarming extent in 
some of the dockyards of France, and in one of them, at least, 
have become very injurious, wholly in consequence of the neglect 
of seasonable advice given by a naval officer, who was also an 
entomologist, and pointed out the source of the injury, together 
with the remedy to be applied. 

These destructive insects belong to a family called Lymexyl- 
iDiE, which may be rendered timber-beetles. They cannot be 
far removed from the Buprestians and the spring-beetles in a 
natural arrangement.* From the latter, however, the insects of 
this small group are distinguished by having the head broad before, 
narrowed behind, and not sunk into the thorax ; they have not the 
breast-spine of the Elaters, and their legs are close together, and 
not separated from each other by a broad breast-bone as in the 
Buprestians ; and the hip-joints are long, and not sunk into the 
breast. In the principal insects of this family the antennae are 
short, and, from the third joint, flattened, widened, and saw- 
toothed on the inside ; and the jaw-feelers of the males have a 
singular fringed piece attached to them. The body is long, nar- 

to mention here. Linnaeus was the first to point out the advantages to be derived 
from employing the Jlrundo arenaria, or beach-grass, in fixing the sands of the 
shore, and thereby preventing the encroachments of the sea. The Dutch have 
long availed themselves of his suggestion, and its utility has been tested to some 
extent in Massachusetts. 

* Immediately after the Elateridee are arranged the Cehrionidce, by common con- 
sent. Next to these I put the Lymexylida;, which resemble Sandalus, one of the 
Ccbrionidm, in their antennae. The sericeum, above described, probably not a true 
Lymexylon, was included among the CchrionidcB in my Catalogue. According to 
my present vie,ws the Pim«<Z<E and Clerida should follow the Lymexylida; Eno- 
plium and Tillus among the latter having some resemblance to Lyinexylon, &c., 
and agreeing therewith in habits also. 



52 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

row, nearly cylindrical, and not so firm and hard as in the Ela- 
ters. The feet are five-jointed, long, and slender. 

The larvae of Lymexylon and Hyleccetus are very odd-looking, 
long, and slender grubs. The head is small ; the first ring is very 
much hunched ; and on the top of the last ring there is a fleshy 
appendage, resembling a leaf in Lymexylov , and like a straight 
horn in Hyleccetus. They have six short legs near the head. 
These grubs inhabit oak-trees, and make long cylindrical burrows 
in the solid wood. They are also found in some other kinds of 
trees. 

Only a few native insects of this family are known to me, and 
these fortunately seem to be rare in New England. I shall de- 
scribe only two of them. The first was obtained by beating the 
limbs of some forest-tree. It may be called Lymexylon sericeum, 
the silky timber-beetle. It is of a chestnut-brown color above, 
and covered with very short shining yellowish hairs, which give it 
a silky lustre. The head is bowed down beneath the forepart of 
the thorax ; the eyes are very large, and almost meet above and 
below ; the antennae are brownish red, widened and compressed 
from the fourth to the last joint inclusive ; the thorax is longer 
than wide, rounded before, convex above, and deeply indented on 
each side of the base ; the wing-covers are convex, gradually 
taper behind, and do not cover the tip of the abdomen ; the under- 
side of the body, and the legs, are brownish red. Its length is from 
four to six tenths of an inch. This insect was unknown to Mr. 
Say, and does not seem to have been described before. 

The generical name Hyleccetus, given to some insects of this 
family, means a sleeper in the woods, or one who makes his bed 
in the forest. We have one hitherto undescribed species, which 
may be called Hyleccetus Americanus., the American timber-bee- 
tle. Its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs are light brownish red ; 
the wing-covers, except at the base where they are also red, and 
the breast, between the middle and hindmost legs, are black. The 
head is not bowed down under the forepart of the thorax ; the 
eyes are small and black, and on the middle of the forehead there 
is one small reddish eyelet, a character unusual among beetles, 
very kw of which have eyelets ; the anfennse resemble those of 
Lymexylon sericeum^ but are shorter ; the thorax is nearly square. 



COLEOPTERA. 53 

but wider than long ; and on each wing-cover there are three 
slightly elevated longitudinal lines or ribs. This beetle is about 
four tenths of an inch long. It appears on the wing in July. 



The foregoing beetles, though differing much in form and habits, 
possess one character in common ; namely, their feet are five- 
jointed. Those that follow have four-jointed feet. In this gjreat 
section of Coleopterous insects are arranged the Weevil tribe, the 
Capricorn beetles or long-horned borers, and various kinds of leaf- 
eating beetles, all of which are exceedingly injurious to vegetation. 

So great is the extent of the Weevil tribe,* and so imperfectly 
known is the history of a large part of our native species, that I 
shall be obliged to confine myself to an account of a few only of 
the most remarkable weevils, and principally those that have be- 
come most known for their depredations. Mr. Kollar's excellent 
" Treatise on Insects injurious to Gardeners, Foresters, and Farm- 
ers," contains an account of several kinds of weevils that are un- 
known in this country ; and indeed but few resembling them have 
hitherto been discovered here. Should future observations lead 
to the detection in our gardens and orchards of any like those 
which in Europe attack the vine, the plum, the apple, the pear, 
and the leaves and stems of fruit-trees, the work of Mr. Kollar 
may be consulted with great advantage. 

Weevils, in the winged state, are hard-shelled beetles, and are 
distinguished from other insects by having the forepart of the 
head prolonged into a broad muzzle or a longer and more slender 
snout, in the end of which the opening of the mouth and the small 
horny jaws are placed. The flies and moths produced from 
certain young insects, called weevils by mistake, do not possess 
these characters, and their larvs or young differ essentially from 
those of the true weevils. The latter belong to a group called 
RHYNCHOPHORiDiE, literally, snout-bearers. These beetles are 
mostly of small size. Their antennae are usually knobbed at the 
end, and are situated on the muzzle or snout, on each side of which 
there is generally a short groove to receive the base of the antennae 

* See page 19. 



64 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

when the latter are turned backwards. Their feelers are very 
small, and, in most kinds, are concealed within the mouth. The 
abdomen is often of an oval form, and wider than the thorax. 
The legs are short, not fitted for running or digging, and the soles 
of the feet are short and flattened. These beetles are often very- 
hurtful to plants, by boring into the leaves, bark, buds, fruit, and 
seeds, and feeding upon the soft substance therein contained. 
They are diurnal insects, and love to come out of their retreats 
and enjoy the sunshine. Some of them fly well ; but others have 
no wings, or only very short ones, under the wing-cases, and are 
therefore unable to fly. They walk slowly, and being of a timid 
nature, and without the means of defence, when alarmed they turn 
back their antennae under the snout, fold up their legs, and fall 
from the plants on which they live. They make use of their 
snouts not only in feeding, but in boring holes, into which they 
afterwards drop their eggs. 

The young of these snout-beetles are mostly short fleshy grubs, 
of a whitish color, and without legs. The covering of their 
heads is a hard shell, and the rings of their bodies are very convex 
or hunched, by both of which characters they are easily distin- 
guished from the maggots of flies. Their jaws are strong and 
horny, and with them they gnaw those parts of plants which 
serve for their food. It is in the grub-state that weevils are most 
injurious to vegetation. Some of them bore into and spoil fruits, 
grain, and seeds ; some attack the leaves and stems of plants, 
causing them to swell and become cankered ; while others pene- 
trate into the solid wood, interrupt the course of the sap, and oc- 
casion the branch above the seat of attack to wither and die. 
Most of these grubs are transformed within the vegetable substan- 
ces upon which they have lived ;j^some, however, when fully 
grown, go into the ground, where they are changed to pupse, and 
afterwards to beetles. 

In the spring of the year we often find, among seed-pease, many 
that have holes in them ; and, if the pease have not been exposed 
to the light and air, we see a little insect peeping out of each of 
these holes, and waiting apparently for an opportunity to come 
forth and make its escape. If we turn out the creature from its 
cell, we perceive it to be a small oval beetle, rather more than 



COLEOPTERA. 55 

one tenth of an inch long, of a rusty black color, with a white spot 
on the hinder part of the thorax, four or five white dots behind the 
middle of each wing-cover, and a white spot, shaped like the 
letter T, on the exposed extremity of the body. This little insect 
is the Bruchus Pisi of Linnseus, the pea-Bruchus, or pea-weevil, 
but is better known in America by the incorrect name of pea-bug. 
The original meaning of the word Bruchus is a devourer, and the 
insects to which it is apphed well deserve this name, for, in the 
larva state, they devour the interior of seeds, often leaving but 
little more than the hull untouched. They belong to a family of 
the great weevil tribe called Bruchid^, and are distinguished 
from other weevils by the following characters. The body is 
oval, and slightly convex ; the head is bent downwards, so that 
the broad muzzle, when the insects are not eating, rests upon the 
breast ; the antenns are short, straight, and saw-toothed within, 
and are inserted close to a deep notch in each of the eyes ; the 
feelers, though very small, are visible ; the wing-cases do not 
cover the end of the abdomen ; and the hindmost thighs are very 
thick, and often notched or toothed on the under-side, as is the 
case in the pea-weevil. The habits of the Bruchians and their larvae 
are similar to those of the pea-weevil, which remain to be de- 
scribed. It may be well, however, to state here that these beetles 
frequent the leguminous or pod-bearing plants, such as the pea, 
Gleditsia, Robinia, Mimosa, Cassia, &c., during and immediately 
after the flowering season ; they pierce the tender pods of these 
plants, and commonly lay only one egg in each seed, the pulp of 
which suffices for the food of the little maggot-like grub hatched 
therein. 

Few persons while indulging in the luxury of early green pease 
are aware how many insects *hey unconsciously swallow. When 
the pods are carefully examined, small, discolored spots may be 
seen within them, each one corresponding to a similar spot on the 
opposite pea. If this spot in the pea be opened, a minute whitish 
grub, destitute of feet, will be found therein. It is the weevil in 
its larva form, which hves upon the marrow of the pea, and arrives 
at its full size by the time that the pea becomes dry. This larva 
or grub then bores a round hole from the hollow in the centre of 
the pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter and generally the 



56 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

germ of the future sprout untouched. Hence these buggy pease, 
as they are called by seedsmen and gardeners, will frequently 
sprout and grow when planted. The grub is changed to a pupa 
within its hole in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring 
casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole through 
the thin hull in order to make its escape into the air, which fre- 
quently does not happen before the pease are planted for an early 
crop. After the pea-vines have flowered, and while the pods are 
young and tender, and the pease within them are just beginning to 
swell, the beetles gather upon them, pierce the pods, and deposit 
their tiny eggs in the punctures. This is done only during the 
night, or in cloudy weather. Each egg is always placed opposite 
to a pea ; the grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the 
pod and bury themselves in the pease ; and the holes through 
which they pass are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are 
soon closed. Sometimes every pea in a pod will be found to con- 
tain a weevil-grub ; and so great has been the injury to the crop in 
some parts of the country that the inhabitants have been obliged to 
give up the cultivation of this vegetable.* These insects, as Mr. 
Deane has observed, diminish the weight of the pease in which 
they lodge, nearly one half, and their leavings are fit only for the 
food of swine. This occasions a great loss, where pease are 
raised for feeding stock or for family use, as they are in many 
places. Those persons, who eat whole pease in the winter after 
they are raised, run the risk of eating the weevils also ; but if the 
pease are kept till they are a year old, the insects will entirely 
leave them. 

The pea-weevil is supposed to be a native of the United States. 
It seems to have been first noticed in Pennsylvania, many years 
ago ; and has gradually spread from thence to New Jersey, New 
York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. It is yet 
rare in New Hampshire, and I believe has not appeared in the 
eastern parts of Maine. It is unknown in the North of Europe, as 
we learn from the interesting account given of it by Kalm, the 
Swedish traveller, who tells us of the fear with which he was filled, 
on finding some of these weevils in a parcel of pease which he had 

* See Kalm's Travels. 8vo. Warrington. 1770. Vol. I. p. 173. 



COLEOPTERA. 57 

carried home from America, having in view the whole damage 
which his beloved country would have suffered, if only two or 
three of these noxious insects had escaped him. They are now 
common in the South of Europe and in England, whither they 
may have been carried from this country. As the cultivated pea 
was not originally a native of America, it would be interesting to 
ascertain what plants the pea-weevil formerly inhabited. That it 
should have preferred the prolific exotic pea to any of our indi- 
genous and less productive pulse, is not a matter of surprise, anal- 
ogous facts being of common occurrence ; but that, for so many 
years, a rational method for checking its ravages should not have 
been practised, is somewhat remarkable. An exceedingly simple 
one is recommended by Deane, but to be successful it should be 
universally adopted. It consists merely in keeping seed-pease 
in tight vessels over one year before planting them. Latreille 
and others recommend putting them, just before they are to be 
planted, into hot water for a minute or two, by which means the 
weevils will be killed, and the sprouting of the pease will be 
quickened. The insect is limited to a certain period for deposit- 
ing its eggs ; late sown pease therefore escape its attacks. The 
late Colonel Pickering observed that those sown in Pennsylvania 
as late as the twentieth of May, were entirely free from weevils ; 
and Colonel Worthington, of Rensselaer county. New York, who 
sowed his pease on the tenth of June, six years in succession, 
never found an insect in them during that period. 

The crow black-bird is said to devour great numbers of the 
beetles in the spring ; and the Baltimore oriole or hang-bird 
splits open the green pods for the sake of the grubs contained in 
the pease, thereby contributing greatly to prevent the increase of 
these noxious insects. The instinct that enables this beautiful 
bird to detect the lurking grub, concealed, as the latter is, within 
the pod and the hull of the pea, is worthy our highest admiration ; 
and the goodness of Providence, which has endowed it with this 
faculty, is still further shown in the economy of the insects also, 
which, through His prospective care, are not only limited in the 
season of their depredations, but ate instinctively taught to spare 
the germs of the pease, thereby securing a succession of crops for 
our benefit and that of their own progeny. 



58 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The Attelabians (Attelabid^) are distinguished from the 
Bruchians by the form and greater length of the head, which is a 
Httle inchned, and ends with a snout, sometimes short and thick, 
and sometimes long, slender, and curved. The eyes also are 
round and entire ; and the antennae are usually implanted near the 
middle of the snout. The larvae resemble those of most of the 
snout-beetles, being short, thick, whitish grubs, with horny heads, 
the rings of the body very much hunched, and deprived of legs, 
the place of which is supplied by fleshy warts along the under-side 
of the body. Some of the European insects of this family are 
known to be very injurious to the leaves, fruits, and seeds of 
plants. 

The different kinds of Attelabus are said to roll up the edges 
of leaves, thereby forming little nests, of the shape and size of 
thimbles, to contain their eggs, and to shelter their young, which 
afterwards devour the leaves. The larvae and habits of our native 
species are unknown to me. The most common one here is the 
Attelabus analis of Weber, or the red-tailed Attelabus. It is one 
quarter of an inch long from the tip of the thick snout to the end 
of the body. The head, which is nearly cylindrical, the antennae, 
legs, and middle of the breast are deep blue-black ; the thorax, 
wing-covers, and abdomen are dull red ; the wing-covers taken 
together, are nearly square, and are punctured in rows. This 
beetle is found on the leaves of oak-trees in June and July. 

The two-spotted Attelabus, Attelabus bipustulatus of Fabricius, 
is also found on oak-leaves during the same season as the preced- 
ing. It is of a deep blue-black color, with a square dull red spot 
on the shoulders of each wing-cover. It measures rather more 
than one eighth of an inch in length. 

Two or three beetles of this family are very hurtful to the vine, 
in Europe, by nibbling the midrib of the leaves, so that the latter 
may be rolled up to form a retreat for their young. They also 
puncture the buds and the tender fruit of this and of other plants. 
In consequence of the damage, caused by them and by their 
larvae, whole vineyards are sometimes stripped of their leaves, and 
fruit-trees are despoiled of their foliage and fruits. These insects 
belong to the genus Rhynchites, a name given to them in allusion 
to their snouts. I have not seen any of them on vines or fruit- 



COLEOPTERA. 59 

trees in this country. Tiie largest one found here is the Rhyn- 
chites bicolor of Fabricius, or two-colored Rhynchites. This 
insect is met with in June, July, and August, on cultivated and 
wild rose-bushes, sometimes in considerable numbers. That they 
injure these plants is highly probable, but the nature and extent of 
the injury is not certainly known. The whole of the upper 
side of this beetle is red, except the rather long and slender 
snout, which, together with the antennae, legs, and under-side of 
the body, is black ; it is thickly covered with small punctures, 
and is slightly downy, and there are rows of larger punctures on 
the wing-covers. It measures one fifth of an inch from the eyes 
to the tip of the abdomen. 

The grubs of many kinds o( Apion destroy the seeds of plants. 
In Europe they do much mischief to clover in this way. They 
receive the above name from the shape of the beetles, which 
resembles that of a pear. Say's Apion, Apion Sayi* of Schon- 
herr, is a minute black species, not more than one tenth of an inch 
long, exclusive of the slender sharp-pointed snout. Its grubs live 
in the pods of the common wild indigo bush, Baptisia tinctoria, 
devouring the seeds. A smaller kind, somewhat like it, inhabits 
the pods and eats the seeds of the locust-tree, or Robinia pseud- 
acacia. 

Naturalists place here a little group of snout-beetles, called 
BrenthiDxE, or Brenthians, which differ entirely in their forms 
from the other weevils, both in the beetle and grub state. 
They have a long, narrow, and cylindrical body. The snout pro- 
jects from the head in a straight line with the body, and varies in 
shape according to the sex of the insect, and even in individuals of 
the same sex. In the males it is broad and flat, sometimes as 
long as the thorax, sometimes much shorter, and it is widened at 
the tip, where are situated two strong nippers or upper jaws ; in 
the females it is long, very slender, and not enlarged at the ex- 
tremity, and the nippers are not visible to the naked eye. The 
feelers are too small to be seen. The antennae are short, straight, 
slightly thickened towards the tip, and implanted before the prom- 
inent eyes, on the middle of the snout in the males, and at the 

* Apion rostrum, Say. 



60 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

base of it in the females. The legs are short, the first pair being 
the largest, and the hindmost unusually distant from the middle 
pair. These insects live under the bark and in the trunks of 
trees, but very little has been published respecting their habits ; 
and the only description of their larvae that has hitherto appeared 
is contained in my first Report on the Insects of Massachusetts, 
printed in the year 1838, in the seventy-second number of the 
Documents of the House of Representatives. 

The only beetle of this family known in the New England 
States is the Brenthus [Arrhenodes) septemtrionis * of Herbst, 
the northern Brenthus, so named because most of the other spe- 
cies are tropical insects. It is of a mahogany-brown color ; the 
wing-cases are somewhat darker, ornamented with narrow tawny 
yellow spots, and marked with deep furrows, the sides of which 
are punctured ; the thorax is nearly egg-shaped, broadest behind 
the middle, and highly polished. The common length of this 
insect, including the snout, is six tenths of an inch ; but much 
larger as well as smaller specimens frequently occur. The north- 
ern Brenthus inhabits the white oak, on the trunks and under the 
bark of which it may be found in June and July, having then 
completed its transformations. The female, when about to lay 
her eggs, punctures the bark with her slender snout, and drops an 
egg in each hole thus made. The grub, as soon as it is hatched, 
bores into the solid wood, forming a cylindrical passage, which it 
keeps clear by pushing its castings out of the orifice of the hole, 
as fast as they accumulate. These castings or chips are like very 
fine saw-dust ; and the holes made by the insects are easily dis- 
covered by the dust around them. When fully grown, the grub 
measures rather more than an inch in length, and not quite one 
tenth of an inch in thickness. It is nearly cylindrical, being only 
a little flattened on the under-side, and is of a whitish color, ex- 
cept the last segment, which is dark chestnut-brown. Each of 
the first three segments is provided with a pair of legs, and there 
is a fleshy prop-leg under the hinder extremity of the body. The 
last segment is of a horny consistence, and is obliquely hollowed 

* A mistake undoubtedly for septemtrionalis. It is the Brenthus maxillosus of 
Olivier and Schonherr. 



COLEOPTERA. 61 

at the end, so as to form a kind of gouge or scoop, the edges of 
which are furnished with httle notches or teeth. It is by means 
of this singular scoop that the grub shovels the minute grains of 
wood out of its burrow. The pupa is met with in the burrow 
formed by the larva. It is of a yellowish white color ; the head 
is bent under the thorax, and the snout rests on the breast be- 
tween the folded legs and wings ; the back is furnished with 
transverse rows of little thorns or sharp teeth, and there are two 
larger thorns at the extremity of the body. These minute thorns 
probably enable the pupa to move towards the mouth of its bur- 
row when it is about to be transformed, and may serve also to 
keep its body steady during its exertions in casting off its pupa- 
skin. These insects are most abundant in trees that have been 
cut down for timber or fuel, which are generally attacked during 
the first summer after they are felled ; it has also been ascertained 
that living trees do not always escape, but those that are in full 
vigor are rarely perforated by grubs of this kind. The credit of 
discovering the habits and transformations of the northern Bren- 
thus is due to the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hamp- 
shire, who has favored me with specimens in all their forms. 
This insect is now known to inhabit nearly all the States in the 
Union. I am inclined to think that the Brenthians ought to be 
placed at the end of the weevil tribe ; but I have not ventured to 
alter the arrangement generally adopted. 

The rest of the weevils are short and thick beetles, differing 
from all the preceding in their antennae, which are bent or elbowed 
near the middle, the first joint being much longer than the rest. 
Their feelers are not perceptible. They belong to the family 
CuRcuLioNiD^, so called from the principal genus ( urcufio, a 
name given by the Romans to the corn-weevil. The Curculio- 
nians vary in the form, length, and direction of their snouts. 
Those belonging to the old genus Lurculio have short and thick 
snouts, at the extremity of which, and near to the sides of the 
mouth, the antennae are implanted ; those to which the name of 
RhjnchiEnus was formerly applied have longer and more slender 
snouts, usually bearing the antennae on or just behind the middle ; 
and the third great genus, called Calandra^ contains long-snouted 
beetles, whose antennae are fixed just before the eyes at the base of 



62 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the snout. These weevils, being very numerous, and differing also, 
greatly in their forms and habits, have latterly been divided into a 
great number of genera, distinguished from each other by more or 
less striking peculiarities. The convenience and simplicity of the 
former arrangement has induced me to retain the old names Cur- 
culio, Rhynchcenus, and Calandra, for the few species to be here 
described, while the names of the new genera, to which they have 
been referred, will be included within parentheses. 

Curculio (Pandeleteius) hilaris of Herbst, which we may call 
the gray-sided Curculio, is a little pale brown beetle, variegated 
with gray upon the sides. Its snout is short, broad, and slightly 
furrowed in the middle ; there are three blackish stripes on the 
thorax, between which are two of a light gray color ; the wing- 
covers have a broad stripe of light gray on the outer side, edged 
within by a slender blackish line, and sending two short oblique 
branches almost across each wing-cover ; and the fore-legs are 
much larger than the others. The length of this beetle varies 
from one eighth to one fifth of an inch. The larva lives in the 
trunks of the white oak, on which the beetles may be found about 
the last of May and the beginning of June. 

The Pales weevil, Curculio (Hylobius) Pales of Herbst, is a 
beetle of a deep chestnut-brown color, having a line and a few 
dots of a yellowish white color on the thorax, and many small 
yellowish white spots sprinkled over the wing-covers. All the 
thighs are toothed beneath, and the snout is slender, cylindrical, 
inclined, and nearly as long as the thorax. On account of the 
length of the snout this insect has been placed in the genus Rhyn- 
chcenus by some naturalists ; but the antennae are implanted before 
the middle of the snout, and not far from the sides of the mouth. 
This beetle measures from two to three eighths of an inch in 
length, exclusive of the snout. It may be found in great abun- 
dance, in May and June, on board-fences, the sides of new wooden 
buildings, and on the trunks of pine-trees. I have discovered 
them, in considerable numbers, under the bark of the pitch-pine. 
The larvae, which do not materially differ from those of other 
weevils, inhabit these and probably other kinds of pines, doing 
sometimes immense injury to them. Wilson, the ornithologist, 



COLEOPTERA. 63 

describes the depredations of these insects, in his account * of the 
ivory-billed wood-pecker, in the following words. " Would it be 
believed that the larvae of an insect, or fly, not larger than a grain 
of rice, should silently, and in one season, destroy some thousand 
acres of pine trees, many of them from two to three feet in diam- 
eter, and a hundred and fifty feet high ! Yet whoever passes along 
the high road from Georgetown to Charleston, in South Carolina, 
about twenty miles from the former place, can have striking and 
melancholy proofs of the fact. In some places the whole woods, 
as far as you can see around you, are dead, stripped of the bark, 
their wintry-looking arms and bare trunks bleaching in the sun, 
and tumbling to ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful 
picture of desolation. Until some effectual preventive or more 
complete remedy can be devised against these insects and their 
larvae, I would humbly suggest the propriety of protecting and 
receiving with proper feelings of gratitude the services of this and 
the whole tribe of wood-peckers, letting the odium of guilt fall to 
its proper owners." Some years ago Mr. Nuttall kindly procured 
for me, near the place above mentioned, specimens of the destruc- 
tive insects referred to by Wilson. They were of three kinds. 
Those in greatest abundance were the Pales weevil. One of the 
others was a larger, darker-colored weevil, without white spots on 
it, and named Hylohius picivorus, by Germar and Schonherr, or 
the pitch-eating weevil; it is seldom found in Massachusetts. 
The third was the white pine weevil to be next described. It is 
said that these beetles puncture the buds and the tender bark of 
the small branches, and feed upon the juice, and that the young 
shoots are often so much injured by them as to die and break off 
at the wounded part. But it is in the larva state that they are 
found to be most hurtful to the pines. The larvae live under the 
bark, devouring its soft inner surface, and llie tender newly 
formed wood. When they abound, as they do in some of our 
pine forests, they separate large pieces of bark from the wood be- 
neath, in consequence of which the part perishes, and the tree 
itself.soon languishes and dies. 

The white pine weevil, Rhynchanus (Pissodes) Strohif, of 

* American Ornithology. Vol. IV. p. 21. 
t Pissodes nemorensis of Germar. 



64 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Professor Peck, unites with the two preceding insects in destroy- 
ing the pines of this country, as above described. But it employs 
also another mode of attack on the white pine, of which an inter- 
esting account is given by the late Professor Peck, the first de- 
scriber of the insect, in the fourth volume of the " Massachusetts 
Agricultural Repository and Journal," accompanied by figures of 
the insect. The lofty stature of the white pine, and the straight- 
ness of its trunk depend, as Professor Peck has remarked, upon 
the constant health of its leading shoot, for a long succession of 
years ; and if this shoot be destroyed, the tree becomes stunted 
and deformed in its subsequent growth. This accident is not un- 
common, and is caused by the ravages of the white pine wee- 
vil. This beetle is oblong oval, rather slender, of a brownish 
color, thickly punctured, and variegated with small brown, rust- 
colored, and whitish scales. There are two white dots on the 
thorax ; the scutel is white ; and on the wing-covers, which are 
punctured in rows, there is a whitish transverse band behind the 
middle. The snout is longer than the thorax, slender, and a vqjpy 
little inclined. The length of this insect, exclusive of its snout, 
varies from one fifth to three tenths of an inch. Its eggs are de- 
posited on the leading shoot of the pine, probably immediately 
under the outer bark. The larvae, hatched therefrom, bore into the 
shoot in various directions, and probably remain in the wood more 
than one year. When the feeding state is passed, but before the 
insect is changed to a pupa, it gnaws a passage from the inside 
quite to the bark, which, however, remaining untouched, serves 
to shelter the little borers from the weather. After they have 
changed to beetles, they have only to cut away the outer bark to 
make their escape. They begin to come out early in September, 
and continue to leave the wood through that month and a part of 
October. The shoot at this time will be found pierced with 
small round holes on all sides ; sometimes thirty or forty may be 
counted on one shoot. Professor Peck has observed that an un- 
limited increase is not permitted to this destructive insect ; and 
that if it were, our forests would not produce a single mast. One 
of the means appointed to restrain the increase of the white pine 
weevil is a species of ichneumon-fly, endued with sagacity to dis- 
cover the retreat of the larva, the body of which it stings, and 



COLEOPTERA. 65 

therein deposits an egg. From the latter a grub is hatched, 
which devours the larva of the weevil, and is subsequently trans- 
formed to a four-winged fly, in the habitation prepared for it. The 
most effectual remedy against the increase of these weevils is to 
cut off the shoot in August, or as soon as it is perceived to be 
dead, and commit it, with its inhabitants, to the fire. Such is the 
substance of Professor Peck's history of this insect ; to which 
may be added, that the beetles are found in great numbers, in 
April and May, on fences, buildings, and pine-trees ; that they 
probably secrete themselves during the winter in the crevices of 
the bark, or about the roots of the trees, and deposit their eggs in 
the spring ; or they may not usually leave the trees before spring. 

Perhaps the method used for decoying the pine-eating beetles 
in Europe may be practised here with advantage. It consists in 
sticking some newly cut branches of pine-trees in the ground, in 
an open place, during the season when the insects are about to lay 
their eggs. In a few hours these branches will be covered with 
the beetles, which may be shaken into a cloth and burned. 

There are some of the long-snouted weevils which inhabit nuts 
of various kinds. Hence they are called nut-weevils, and belong 
chiefly to the modern genus Balaninus, a name that signifies liv- 
ing or being in a nut. The common nut-weevil of Europe lays 
her eggs in the hazel-nut and filbert, having previously bored a 
hole for that purpose with her long and slender snout, while the 
fruit is young and tender, and dropping only one egg in each nut 
thus pricked. A little grub is soon hatched from the egg, and 
begins immediately to devour the soft kernel. Notwithstanding 
this, the nut continues to increase in size, and, by the time that it 
is ripe and ready to fall, its little inhabitant also comes to its 
growth, gnaws a round hole in the shell, through which it after- 
wards makes its escape, and burrows in the ground. Here it 
remains unchanged through the winter, and in the following sum- 
mer, having completed its transformations, it comes out of the 
ground a beetle. 

In this country weevil-grubs are very common in hazel-nuts, 
chestnuts, and acorns ; but I have not hitherto been able to rear 
any of them to the beetle state. The most common of the nut- 
weevils known to me appears to be the Rhynchcenus [Balaninus) 



66 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

nasicus of Say ; the long-snouted nut-weevil. Its form is oval, 
and its ground color dark brown ; but it is clothed with very 
short rust-yellow flattened hairs, which more or less conceal its 
original color, and are disposed in spots on its wing-covers. The 
snout is brown and pohshed, longer than the whole body, as slen- 
der as a bristle, of equal thickness from one end to the other, and 
slightly curved ; it bears the long elbowed antennae, which are as 
fine as a hair, just behind the middle. This beetle measures 
nearly three tenths of an inch in length, exclusive of the snout. 
It is found in September and October, and more rarely in July, at 
which time it probably lays its eggs. As it does not come out till 
the autumn, it must pass the winter concealed in some secure 
place. From its size and resemblance to the nut-weevil of Eu- 
rope, it may be the species which attacks the hazel-nut here. 

It is now well known that the falling of unripe plums, apricots, 
peaches, and cherries is caused by little whitish grubs, which bore 
into these fruits. The loss of fruit, occasioned by insec|g4'.of this 
kind, is frequently very great ; and, in some of our gardens and 
orchards, the crop of plums is often entirely ruined by the depre- 
dations of grubs, which have been ascertained to be the larvae or 
young of a small beetle of the weevil tribe, called Rhynchcenus 
(^Co7iotrachelus) Jfenuphar*, the Nenuphar or plum-weevil. I 
have found these beetles as early as the thirtieth of March, and as 
late as the tenth of June, and at various intermediate times, 
accordingjBWith the forwardness or backwardness of vegetation in 
the spring, and have frequently caught them flying in the middle 
of the day. They are from three twentieths to one fifth of an 
inch long, exclusive of the curved snout, which is rather longer 
than the thorax, and is bent under the breast, between the fore- 
legs, when at rest. Their color is a dark brown, variegated with 
spots of white, ochre-yellow, and black. The thorax is uneven ; 
the wing-covers have several short ridges upon them, those on the 
middle of the back forming two considerable humps, of a black 
color, behind which there is a wide band of ochre-yellow and 
white. Each of the thighs has two little teeth on the under-side. 

* First described by Herbst, in 1797, under the name of Curculio JYenuphar ; 
Fabricius redescribed it under that oi Rhynchcenus Argula ; and Dejean has named 
it Conotrachelus variegatus. 



COLEOPTERA. 67 

They begin to sting the plums as soon as the fruit is set, and, as 
some say, continue their operations till the first of August. After 
making a suitable puncture with their snouts, they lay one egg in 
each plum thus stung, and go over the fruit on the tree in this 
way till their store is exhausted ; so that, where these beetles 
abound, not a plum will escape being punctured. The irritation 
arising from these punctures, and from the gnawings of the grubs 
after they are hatched, causes the young fruit to become gummy, 
diseased, and finally to drop before it is ripe. Meanwhile the 
grub comes to its growth, and, immediately after the fruit falls, 
burrows into the ground. This may occur at various times be- 
tween the middle of June and of August ; and, in the space of a 
little more than three weeks afterwards, the insect completes its 
transformations, and comes out of the ground in the beetle form. 
The history of the insect thus far is the result of my own observa- 
tions ; the remainder rests on the testimony of other persons. 

TiiMm account of the plum-weevil, by Dr. James Tilton of 
Wilmington, Delaware, published in Mease's "Domestic Ency- 
clopaedia," under the article Fruity and since republished in the 
" Georgical Papers for 1809" of the Massachusetts Agricultural 
Society, and in other works, it is stated, that peaches, nectarines, 
apples, pears, quinces, and cherries are also attacked by this 
insect, and that it remains in the earth, in the form of a grub, dur- 
ing the winter, ready to be matured into a beetle as the spring 
advances. These statements I have not yet been able* to con- 
firm. It seems, however, to have been fully ascertained by 
Professor Peck, Mr. Say, and others, in whose accuracy full 
confidence may be placed, that this same weevil attacks all- our 
common stone-fruits, such as plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, 
and cherries ; Dr. Burnett has recently assured me that he has seen 
this beetle puncturing apples ; and it is not at all improbable that 
the transformations of some of the grubs may be retarded till the 
winter has passed, analogous cases being of frequent occurrence. 
Those that are sometimes found in apples must not be mistaken 
for the more common apple- worms, which are not the larvae of a 
weevil. The Rev. F. V. Melsheimer remarks in his Catalogue, 
that this insect lives under the bark of the peach-tree. Professor 
Peck raised the same beetle from a grub found in the warty ex- 



68 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

crescence of a cherry-tree, and from this circumstance named it 
Rhynchcsnus Cerasi, the cherry-weevil. The plum, still more than 
the cherry tree, is subject to a disease of the small limbs, which 
shows itself in the form of large irregular warts, of a black color, as 
if charred. Grubs, apparently the same as those that are found in 
plums, have often been detected in these warts, which are now gen- 
erally supposed to be produced by the punctures of the beetles, and 
the residence of the grubs. Professor Peck says that " the seat 
of the disease is in the bark. The sap is diverted from its regular 
course, and is absorbed entirely by the bark, which is very much 
increased in thickness ; the cuticle bursts, the swelling becomes 
irregular, and is formed into black lumps, with a cracked, uneven, 
granulated surface. The wood, besides being deprived of its 
nutriment, is very much compressed, and the branch above the 
tumor perishes."* The grubs found by Professor Peck in the 
tumors of the cherry-tree, went into the ground on the sixth of 
July, and on the thirtieth of the same month, or twenty-fiM^days 
from their leaving the bark, the perfect insects began to rise, and 
were soon ready to deposit their eggs in healthy branches. 

In order to account for the occurrence of these insects both in 
the fruit and in the branches of the trees, I have ventured, on an- 
other occasion, to give the following explanation, although it rests 
only upon conjecture. The final transformation of the grubs, liv- 
ing in the fruit, appears to take place at various times during the lat- 
ter part of summer and the beginning of autumn, when the weevil, 
finding no young fruit, is probably obliged to lay its eggs in the 
small branches. The larvae or grubs from these eggs live in the 
branches during the winter, and are not perfected till near the last 
of the following June. Should the fall of the fruit occur late in 
the autumn, the development of the beetles will be retarded till 
the next spring ; and this I suppose to be the origin of the brood 
which stings the fruit. These suggestions seem to receive some 
confirmation from the known liabits of the copper-colored plum- 
weevils of Europe, which, " in default of plums, make use of the 
soft spring shoots of the plum and apricot trees." f In cases like 

* See Professor Peck's account of Insects which affect Oaks and Cherry trees; 
with a plate ; in tlie '• Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal." Vol. 
V. p. 312. 

1 Kollar's Treatise, p. 238. 



COLEOPTERA. 69 

these, we see the care of the Creator for some of the least of his 
creatures, which He has wisely provided with variable instincts, 
enabling them to accommodate themselves to the difficulties of the 
situation in which they may happen to be placed, and thus, even 
in unfruitful seasons, to provide for a succession of their kind. 

The following, among other remedies that have been suggested, 
may be found useful in checking the ravages of the plum-weevil. 
Let the trees be briskly shaken or suddenly jarred every morning 
and evening during the time that the insects appear in the beetle 
form, and are engaged in laying their eggs. When thus disturbed 
they contract their legs and fall ; and, as they do not immediately 
attempt to fly or crawl away, they may be caught in a sheet spread 
under the tree, from which they should be gathered into a large 
wide-mouthed bottle or other tight vessel, and be thrown into the 
fire. All the fallen wormy plums should be immediately gathered, 
an^«|ter they are boiled or steamed, to kill the enclosed grubs, 
th^^Say be given as food to swine. The diseased excrescences 
should be cut out and burned every year before the last of June. 
The moose plum-tree [Primus /Imericana) , which grows wild in 
Maine, seems to escape the attacks of insects, for no warts are 
found upon it, even when grov/ing in the immediate vicinity of 
diseased foreign trees. It would, therefore, be the best of stocks 
for budding or engrafting upon. It can easily be raised from the 
stone, and grows rapidly, but does not attain a great size. For 
further suggestions and remarks, the. account of this insect by 
Dr. Joel Burnett, in the eighteenth volume of the " New England 
Farmer," may be consulted. 

The most pernicious of the Rhynchophorians, or snout-beetles, 
are the insects properly called grain-weevils, belonging to the old 
genus Calandra. These insects must not be confounded with the 
still more destructive larvas of the corn-moth (Tinea granella)., 
which also attacks stored grain, nor with the orange-colored mag- 
gots of the wheat-fly [Cecidomyia Tritici), which are found in the 
ears of growing wheat. Although the grain-weevils are not 
actually injurious to vegetation, yet as the name properly belong- 
ing to them has often been misapplied in this country, thereby 
creating no little confusion, some remarks upon them may tend to 
prevent future mistakes. 

The true grain-weevil or wheat-weevil of Europe, Calandra 



10 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

(Sitophilns) grmiaria, or Curculio granarius of Linnaeus, in its 
perfected state is a slender beetle of a pitchy red color, about one 
eighth of an inch long, with a slender snout slightly bent down- 
wards, a coarsely punctured and very long thorax, constituting 
almost one half the length of the whole body, and wing-covers 
that are furrowed, and do not entirely cover the tip of the abdo- 
men. This little insect, both in the beetle and grub state, devours 
stored wheat and other grains, and often commits i#uch havoc in 
granaries and brew-houses. Its powers of multiplication are ^ery 
great, for it is stated that a single pair of these destroyers may 
produce above six thousand descendants in one year. The female 
deposits her eggs upon the wheat after it is housed, and the young 
grubs hatched therefrom immediately burrow into the wheat, each 
individual occupying alone a single grain, the substance of which 
it devours, so as often to leave nothing but the hull ; and this 
destruction goes on within, while no externa] appearance |[si^s to 
its discovery, and the loss of weight is the only evideiice|fl^;^he 
mischief that has been done to the grain. In due time the' grubs 
undergo their transformations, and come out of the hulls, in the 
beetle state, to lay their eggs for another brood. These insects 
are effectually destroyed by kiln-drying the wheat ; and grain, that 
is kept cool, well ventilated, and is frequently moved, is said to 
be exempt from attack. 

Another grain-weevil, hardly differing from the foregoing except 
in its color, which is black, is found in New York. It is the 
Calandra (Sitophilus) remotepunctata of Schunherr. Whether 
wheat, and other grain, suffers to any extent in this country from 
either of these weevils, I have not been able to ascertain, as the 
accounts given of the ravages of the insects supposed to be 
weevils are rarely accompanied by any descriptions of them in 
their different states. 

Rice is attacked by an insect closely resembling the wheat- 
weevil, from which, however, it is distinguished, by having two 
large red spots on each wing-cover ; it is also somewhat smaller, 
measuring only about one tenth of an inch in length, exclusive of 
the snout. This beetle, the Calandra {Sitophilus) OryzcE* or 
rice-weevil, is not entirely confined to rice, but depredates upon 

* Curculio Oryzw of Linnaeus. 



COLEOPTERA. 71 

maize or Indian corn also. I have seen stored Southern corn 
swarming with them ; and, should they multiply and extend in this 
section of the country, they will become a source of serious 
injury to one of the most valuable of our staple productions. It 
is said that this weevil lays its eggs on the rice in the fields, as 
soon as the grain begins to swell. If this indeed be true, we have 
very little to fear from it here, our Indian corn being so well pro- 
tected by the husks that it would probably escape from any injury, 
if attacked. On the contrary, if the insects multiply in stored 
grain, then our utmost care will be necessary to prevent them 
from infesting our own garners. The parent beetle bores a hole 
into the grain, and drops therein a single egg, going from one grain 
to another till all her eggs are laid. She then dies, leaving, how- 
ever, the rice well seeded for a future harvest of weevil-grubs. 
In due time the eggs are hatched, the grubs live securely and un- 
seen in the centre of the rice, devouring a considerable portion of 
its substance, and when fully grown they gnaw a little hole through 
the end of the grain, artfully stopping it up again with particles of 
rice-flour, and then are changed to pupae. This usually occurs 
during the winter ; and in the following spring the insects are 
transformed to beetles, and come out of the grain. By winnowing 
and sifting the rice in the spring, the beetles can be separated, and 
should then be gathered immediately and destroyed. 

The sudden change of the temperature that generally occurs in 
the early part of May, brings out great numbers of insects, from 
their winter-quarters, to enjoy the sunshine and the ardent heat 
which are congenial to their natures. While a continued hum 
is heard, among the branches of the trees, from thousands of bees 
and flies, drawn thither by the fragrance of the bursting buds and 
the tender foliage, and the very ground beneath our feet seems 
teeming with insect life, swarms of little beetles of various kinds 
come forth to try their wings, and, with an uncertain and heavy 
flight, launch into the air. Among these beetles there are many 
of a dull red or fox color, nearly cylindrical in form, tapering a 
very little before, obtusely rounded at both extremities, and about 
one quarter of an inch in length. They are seen slowly creeping 
upon the sides of wooden buildings, resting on the tops offences, 
or wheeling about in the air, and every now and then suddenly 



72 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

alighting on some tree or wall, or dropping to the ground. If we 
go to an old pine-tree we may discover from whence they have 
come, and what they have been about during the past period of 
their lives. Here they will be found creeping out of thousands of 
small round holes which they have made through the bark for 
their escape. Upon raising a piece of the bark, already loosened 
by the undermining of these insects, we find it pierced with holes 
in every direction, and even the surface of the woffd will be seen 
to have been gnawed by these little miners. After enjoying 
themselves abroad for a few days, they pair, and begin to lay 
their eggs. The pitch-pine is most generally chosen by them for 
this purpose, but they also attack other kinds of pines. They 
gnaw little holes here and there through the rough bark of the 
trunk and limbs, drop their eggs therein, and, after this labor is 
finished, they become exhausted and die. In the autumn the 
grubs hatched from these eggs will be found fully grown. _They 
have a short, thick, nearly cylindrical body, wrinkled on theTaack, 
are somewhat curved, and of a yellowish white color, witlTa horny 
darker colored head, and are destitute of feet. They devour 
the soft inner substance of the bark, boring through it in various 
directions for this purpose, and, when they have come to their full 
size, they gnaw a passage to the surface, for their escape after they 
have completed their transformations. These take place deep in 
their burrows late in the autumn, at which time the insects may be 
found in various states of maturity, within the bark. Their depre- 
dations interrupt the descent of the sap, and prevent the formation 
of new wood ; the bark becomes loosened from the wood, to a 
greater or less extent, and the tree languishes and prematurely 
decays. The name of this insect is Hylurgus terebrans*, the 
boring Hylurgus ; the generical name signifying a carpenter, or 
worker in wood. It belongs to the family ScoLYxiDiE, including 
various kinds of destructive insects, which may be called cylindri- 
cal bark-beetles. The insects of this family may be recognised 
by the following characters. The body is nearly cylindrical, ob- 
tuse before and behind, and generally of some shade of brown. 
The head is rounded, sunk pretty deeply in the forepart of the 
thorax, and does not end with a snout ; the antennae are short, 

* Scolytus terebrans of Olivier. 



COLEOPTERA. 73 

more or less crooked or curved in the middle, and end with an 
oval knob ; the feelers are very short. The thorax is rather long, 
and as broad as the following part of the body. The wing-covers 
are frequently cut off obliquely or hollowed at the hinder ex- 
tremity. The legs are short and strong, with little teeth on the 
outer edge or extremity of the shanks, and the feet are not wide 
and spongy beneath. 

Though these cylindrical bark-beetles are of small size, they 
multiply very fast, and where they abound are productive of much 
mischief, particularly in forests, which are often greatly injured by 
their larvae, and the wood is rendered unfit for the purposes of 
art. In the year 1780, an insect of this family made its appear- 
ance in the pine-trees of one of the mining districts of Germany, 
where it increased so rapidly that in three years afterwards whole 
forests had disappeared beneath its ravages, and an end was 
nearly put to the working of the extensive mines in this range of 
countn^br the want of fuel to carry on the operations. Pines 
and firs are the most subject to their attacks, but there are some 
kinds which infest other trees. The premature decay of the elm 
in some parts of Europe is occasioned by the ravages of the 
Scohjtus destructor^ of which an interesting account was written in 
1824, by Mr. Macleay. An abstract of his paper may be found 
in the fifth volume of the " New England Farmer."* The larvae- 
or grubs of these bark-beetles resemble those of the Hylurgus 
terebrans or pine bark-beetle already described. Like the grubs 
of the weevils, they are short and thick, and destitute of legs. 

The red cedar is inhabited by a very small bark-beetle, named 
by Mr. Say Hylurgus dentatus, the toothed Hylurgus. It is 
nearly one tenth of an inch in length, and of a dark brown color ; 
the wing-cases are rough with little grains, which become more 
elevated towards the hinder part, and are arranged in longitudinal 
rows, with little furrows between them. The tooth-like appear- 
ance of these little elevations suggested the name given to this 
species. The female bores a cylindrical passage beneath the 
bark of the cedar, dropping her eggs at short intervals as she goes 
along, and dies at the end of her burrow when her eggs are all 

* Page 169. 
10 



74 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

laid. The grubs hatched from these proceed in feeding nearly at 
right angles, forming on each side numerous parallel furrows, 
smaller than the central tube of the female. They complete their 
transformations in October, and eat their way through the bark, 
which will then be seen to be perforated with thousands of little 
round holes, through which the beetles have escaped. 

Under the bark of the pitch-pine I have found, in company 
with the pine bark- beetle, a more slender bark-beetle, of a 
dark chestnut-brown color, clothed with a few short yellowish 
hairs, with a long, almost egg-shaped thorax, which is very rough 
before, and short wing-covers, deeply punctured in rows, hol- 
lowed out at the tip like a gouge, and beset around the outer edge 
of the hollow with six little teeth on each side. This beetle 
measures one fifth of an inch, or rather more, in length. It 
arrives at maturity in the autumn, but does not come out of the 
bark till the following spring, at which time it lays its eggs. It is 
the Tomicus exesus, or excavated Tomicus ; the speci^^name, 
signifying eaten out or excavated, was given to it by Mr. Say on 
account of the hollowed and bitten appearance of the end of its 
wing-covers. Its grubs eat zigzag and wavy passages, parallel to 
each other, between the bark and the wood. They are much less 
common in the New England than in the Middle and Southern 
States, where they abound in the yellow pines. 

Another bark-beetle is found here, closely resembling the pre- 
ceding, from which it differs chiefly in the inferiority of its size, 
being but three twentieths of an inch in length, and in having only 
three or four teeth at the outer extremity of each wing-cover. It 
is the Tomicus Pini of Mr. Say. The grubs of this insect are 
very injurious to pine-trees. I have found them under the bark 
of the white and pitch pine, and they have also been discovered 
in the larch. The beetles appear during the month of August. 

For many years past the pear-tree has been found to be subject 
to a peculiar malady, which shows itself during midsummer by the 
sudden withering of the leaves and fruit, and the discoloration of 
the bark of one or more of the limbs, followed by the immediate 
death of the part affected. In June, 1816, the Hon. John 
Lowell, of Roxbury, discovered a minute insect in one of the 
affected limbs of a pear-tree ; afterwards he repeatedly detected 



COLEOPTERA. 76 

the same insects in blasted limbs, and his discoveries have been 
confirmed by Mr. Henry Wheeler and the late Dr. Oliver Fiske, 
of Worcester. Mr. Lowell submitted the limb and the insect 
contained therein to the examination of Professor Peck, who 
gave an account and figure of the latter, in the fourth volume of 
the " Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal." From 
this account, and from the subsequent communication by Mr. 
Lowell, in the fifth volume of the " New England Farmer," it 
appears that the grub or larva of the insect eats its way inward 
through the alburnum or sap-wood into the hardest part of the 
wood, beginning at the root of a bud, behind which probably the 
egg was deposited, following the course of the eye of the bud 
towards the pith, around which it passes, and part of which it also 
consumes ; thus forming, after penetrating through the alburnum, a 
circular burrow or passage in the heart- wood, contiguous to the 
pith which it surrounds. By this means the central vessels, or 
those which convey the ascending sap, are divided, and the circu- 
lation is cut off. This takes place when the increasing heat of the 
atmosphere, producing a greater transpiration from the leaves, ren- 
ders a large and continued flow of sap necessary to supply the 
evaporation. For the want of this, or from some other unexplain- 
ed cause, the whole of the limb above the seat of the insect's 
operations suddenly withers, and perishes during the intense heat 
of midsummer. The larva is changed to a pupa, and subse- 
quently to a little beetle, in the bottom of its burrow, makes its 
escape from the tree in the latter part of June, or beginning of 
July, and probably deposits its eggs before August has passed. 
This little beetle, which is only one tenth of an inch in length, was 
named Scolyius Pyri^ the pear-tree Scolytus, by Professor Peck ; 
it is of a deep brown color, with the antennae and legs rather 
paler, or of the color of iron-rust. The thorax is short, very 
convex, rounded and rough before ; the wing-covers are minutely 
punctured in rows, and slope off ^very suddenly and obliquely be- 
hind ; the shanks are widened and flattened towards the end, 
beset with a few little teeth externally, and end with a short hook ; 
and the joints of the feet are slender and entire. It is evident 
that this insect cannot be retained in the genus Scolytus, as defined 
by modern naturalists ; but the condition of my specimens will 



76 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

not enable me to determine with certainty to which of the modern 
genera they are to be referred. The minuteness of the insect, 
the difficuhy attending the discovery of the precise seat of its 
operations before it has left the tree, and the small size of the 
aperture through which it makes its escape from the limb, are 
probably the reasons why it has eluded the researches of those 
persons who disbelieve in its existence as the cause of the blasting 
of the limbs of the pear-tree. It is to be sought for at or near the 
lowest part of the diseased limbs, and in the immediate vicinity of 
the buds situated about that part. The remedy, suggested by 
Mr. Lowell and Professor Peck, to prevent other limbs and trees 
from being subsequently attacked in the same way, consists in 
cutting off the blasted Umb heloio the seat of injury, and burning it 
before, the perfect insect has made its escape. It will therefore be 
necessary, carefully to examine our pear-trees daily, during the 
month of June, and watch for the first indication of disease, or the 
remedy may be applied too late to prevent the dispersion of the 
insects among other trees. 

There are some other beetles, much like the preceding in form, 
whose grubs bore into the solid wood of trees. They were for- 
merly included among the cylindrical bark-beetles, but have been 
separated from them recently, and now form the family Bostri- 
CHiD^, or Bostrichians. Some of these beetles are of large size, 
measuring more than an inch in length, and, in the tropical regions 
where they are found, must prove very injurious to the trees they 
inhabit. The body .in these beetles is hard and cylindrical, and 
generally of a black color. The thorax is bulging before, and the 
head is sunk and almost concealed under the projecting forepart of 
it. The antennae are of moderate length, and end with three large 
joints, which are saw-toothed internally. The larvse are mostly 
wood-eaters, and are whitish fleshy grubs, wrinkled on the back, 
furnished with six legs, and resemble in form the grubs of some of 
the small Scaraba;ians. The sl|agbark or walnut tree is sometimes 
infested by the grubs of the red-shouldered A pate, or Jl-pate hasil- 
laris of Say, an insect of this family. The grubs bore diametri- 
cally through the trunks of the walnut to the very heart, and un- 
dergo their transformations in the bottom of their burrows. Sev- 
eral trees have fallen under my observation which have been 



COLEOPTERA. 77 

entirely killed by these insects. The beetles are of a deep 
black color, and are punctured all over. The thorax is very 
convex and rough before ; the wing-covers are not excavated at 
the tip, but they slope downwards very suddenly behind, as if 
obliquely cut off, the outer edge of the cut portion is armed with 
three little teeth on each wing-cover, and on the base or shoulders 
there is a large red spot. This insect measures one fifth of an 
inch or more in length. 

The most powerful and destructive of the wood-eating insects 
are the grubs of the long-horned or Capricorn-beetles, (Ceramby- 
ciD^), called borers by way of distinction. There are many 
kinds of borers which do not belong to this tribe. Some of them 
have already been described, and others will be mentioned under 
the orders to which they belong. Those now under considera- 
tion differ much from each other in their habits. Some live alto- 
gether in the trunks of trees, others in the limbs ; some devour 
the wood, others the pith ; some are found only in shrubs, some 
in the stems of herbaceous plants, and others are confined to 
roots. Certain kinds are limited to plants of one species, others 
live indiscriminately upon several plants of one natural family ; but 
the same kind of borer is not known to inhabit plants differing 
essentially from each other in their natural characters. As might 
be expected from these circumstances, the beetles produced from 
these borers are of many difl^erent kinds. Nearly one hundred 
species have been found in Massachusetts, and probably many 
more remain to be discovered. The Capricorn-beetles agree in 
the following respects. The antennae are long and tapering, and 
generally curved like the horns of a goat, which is the origin of the 
name above given to these beetles. The body is oblong, ap- 
proaching to a cylindrical form, a little flattened above, and taper- 
ing somewhat behind. The head is short, and armed with powerful 
jaws. The thorax is either square, barrel-shaped, or narrowed 
before ; and is not so wide behind as the wing-covers. The legs 
are long ; the thighs thickened in the middle ; the feet four- 
jointed, not formed for rapid motion, but for standing securely, 
being broad and cushioned beneath, with the third joint deeply 
notched. Most of these beetles remain upon trees and shrubs 
during the daytime, but fly abroad at night. Some of them. 



78 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

however, fly by day, and may be found on flowers, feeding on the 
pollen and the blossoms. When annoyed or taken into the hands, 
they make a squeaking sound by rubbing the joints of the thorax 
and abdomen together. The females are generally larger and 
more robust than the males, and have rather shorter antennae. 
Moreover they are provided with a jointed tube at the end of the 
body, capable of being extended or drawn in like the joints of a 
telescope, by means of which they convey their eggs into the 
holes and chinks of the bark of plants. 

The larvae hatched from these eggs are long, whitish, fleshy 
grubs, with the transverse incisions of the body very deeply 
marked, so that the rings are very convex or hunched both above 
and below. The body tapers a little behind, and is blunt-pointed. 
The head is much smaller than the first ring, slightly bent down- 
wards, of a horny consistence, and is provided with short but very 
powerful jaws, by means whereof the insect can bore, as with a 
centre-bit, a cylindrical passage through the most sohd wood. 
Some of these borers have six very small legs, namely, one pair 
under each of the first three rings ; but most of them want even 
these short and imperfect limbs, and move through their burrows 
by the alternate extension and contraction of their bodies, on each 
or on most of the rings of which, both above and below, there is 
an oval space covered with little elevations, somewhat like the 
teeth of a fine rasp ; and these little oval rasps, which are de- 
signed to aid the grubs in their motions, fully make up to them the 
want of proper feet. Some of these borers always keep one end 
of their burrows open, out of which, from time to time, they cast 
their chips, resembling coarse saw-dust ; others, as fast as they 
proceed, fill up the passages behind them with their castings, well 
known here by the name of powder-post. These borers live from 
one year to three, or perhaps more years before they come to 
their growth. They undergo their transformations at the furthest 
extremity of their burrows, many of them previously gnawing a 
passage through the wood to the inside of the bark, for their future 
escape. The pupa is at first soft and whitish, and it exhibits all 
the parts of the future beetle under a filmy veil which inwraps 
every limb. The wings and legs are folded upon the breast, the 
long antennae are turned back against the sides of the body, and 



COLEOPTERA. 79 

then bent forwards between the legs. When the beetle has 
thrown off its pupa-skin, it gnaws away the thin coat of bark that 
covers the mouth of its burrow, and comes out of its dark and 
confined retreat, to breathe the fresh air, and to enjoy for the first 
time the pleasure of sight, and the use of the legs and wings with 
which it is provided. 

The Capricorn-beetles have been divided into three families, 
corresponding with the genera Prionus^ Cerambyx, and Leptura 
of Linnaeus. Those belonging to the first family are generally of 
a brown color, have flattened and saw-toothed or beaded antennae 
of a moderate length, projecting jaws, and kidney-shaped eyes. 
Those in the second, have eyes of the same shape, more slender 
or much longer antennae, and smaller jaws ; and are often variegat- 
ed in their colors. The beetles belonging to the third family are 
readily distinguished by their eyes, which are round and promi- 
nent. These three families are divided into many smaller groups 
and genera, the peculiarities of which cannot be particularly point- 
ed out in a work of this kind. 

The Prionians, or Prionid^, derive their name from a Greek 
word signifying a saw, which has been applied to them either be- 
cause the antennae, in most of these beetles, consist of flattened 
joints, projecting internally somewhat like the teeth of a saw, or 
on account of their upper jaws, which sometimes are very long 
and toothed within. It is said that some of the beetles thus 
armed can saw off large limbs by seizing them between their jaws, 
and flying or whirling sidewise round the enclosed limb, till it is 
completely divided. The largest insects of the Capricorn tribe 
belong to this family, some of the tropical species measuring five 
or six inches in length, and one inch and a half or two inches in 
breadth. Their larvae are broader and more flattened than the 
grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles, and are provided with six 
very short legs. When about to be transformed, they collect a 
quantity of their chips around them, and make therewith an oval 
pod or cocoon, to enclose themselves. 

Our largest species is the broad-necked Prionus, Prionus laii- 
collis * of Drury, its first describer. It is of a long oval shape 

* Prionus brevicornis of Fabricius. 



80 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and of a pitchy black color. The jaws, though short, are very- 
thick and strong ; the antennae are stout and saw-toothed in the 
male, and more slender in the other sex ; the thorax is short and 
wide, and armed on the lateral edges with three teeth ; the wing- 
covers have three slightly elevated lines on each of them, and are 
rough with a multitude of large punctures, which run together 
irregularly. It measures from one inch and one eighth, to one 
inch and three quarters in length ; the females being always much 
larger than the males. The grubs of this beetle, when fully 
grown, are as thick as a man's thumb. They live in the trunks 
and roots of the balm of gilead, Lombardy poplar, and probably 
in those of other kinds of poplar also. The beetles may fre- 
quently be seen upon, or flying round the trunks of these trees in 
the month of July, even in the daytime, though the other kinds of 
Prionus generally fly only by night. 

The one-colored Prionus, Prionus unicolor* of Drury, inhabits 
pine-trees. Its body is long, narrow, and flattened, of a light bay- 
brown color, with the head and antennae darker. The thorax is 
very short, and armed on each side with three sharp teeth ; the 
wing-covers are nearly of equal breadth throughout, and have 
three slightly elevated ribs on each of them. This beetle meas- 
ures from one inch and one quarter, to one inch and a half in 
length, and about three or four tenths of an inch in breadth. It 
flies by night, and frequently enters houses in the evening, from 
the middle of July to September. 

The second family of the Capricorn-beetles may be allowed to 
retain the scientific name, CERAMBYCiDiE, of the tribe to which it 
belongs. The Cerambycians have not the very prominent jaws of 
the Prionians ; their eyes are always kidney- shaped or notched 
for the reception of the first joint of the antennae, which are not 
saw-toothed, but generally slender and tapering, sometimes of 
moderate length, sometimes excessively long, especially in the 
males ; the thorax is longer and more convex than in the preced- 
ing family, not thin-edged, but often rounded at the sides. 

Some of these beetles, distinguished by their narrow wing- 
covers, which are notched or armed with two little thorns at the 

* P. cylindricus of Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. 81 

tip, and by the great length of their antennae, belong to the genus 
Stenocoriis, a name signifying narrow or straitened. One of 
them, which is rare here, inhabits the hickory, in its larva state 
forming long galleries in the trunk of this tree in the direction 
of the fibres of the wood. This beetle is the Stenocorus (Ceras- 
phorus) cindus*, or banded Stenocorus. It is of a hazel color, 
with a tint of gray, arising from the short hairs with which it is 
covered ; there is an oblique ochre-yellow band across each wing- 
cover ; and a short spine or thorn on the middle of each side of 
the thorax. The antennae of the males are more than twice the 
length of the body, which measures from three quarters of an inch 
to one inch, and one quarter in length. 

The ground beneath black and white oaks is often observed to 
be strewn with small branches, neatly severed from these trees as 
if cut off with a saw. Upon splitting open the cut end of a branch, 
in the autumn or winter after it has fallen, it will be found to be 
perforated to the extent of six or eight inches in the course of the 
pith, and a slender grub, the author of the mischief, will be dis- 
covered therein. In the spring this grub is transformed to a pupa, 
and in June or July it i^ changed to a beetle, and comes out of the 
branch. The history of this insect was first made public by Pro- 
fessor Peckf, who called it the oak-pruner, or Stenocorus (Eln- 
phidion) putator. In its adult state it is a slender long-horned 
beetle, of a dull brown color, sprinkled with gray spots, composed 
of very short close hairs ; the antennae are longer than the body, in 
the males, and equal to it jn length in the other sex, and the 
third and fourth joints are tipped with a small spine or thorn ; the 
thorax is barrel-shaped, and not spined at the sides ; and the 
scutel 15 yellowish white. It varies in length from four and a half 
to six tenths of an inch. It lays its eggs in July. Each egg is 
placed close to the axilla or joint of a leaf-stalk or of a small twig, 
near the extremity of a branch. The grub hatched fiom it pene- 
trates at that spot to the pith, and then continues its course 
towards the body of the tree, devouring the pith, and thefeby 
forming a cylindrical burrow, several inches in length, in the centre 

* Cerambyx ductus, Drury ; Stcnocorvs garganicus, Fabiicius. 

t Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal. Vol. V., wPtli a plate. 

11 



82 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

of the branch. Having reached its full size, which it does towards 
the end of the summer, it divides the branch at the lower end of 
its burrow, by gnawing away the wood transversely from within, 
leaving only the ring of bark untouched. It then retires backwards, 
stops up the end of its hole, near the transverse section, with 
fibres of the wood, and awaits the fall of the branch, which is 
usually broken off and precipitated to the ground by the autumnal 
winds. The leaves of the oak are rarely shed before the branch 
falls, and thus serve to break the shock. Branches of five or six 
feet in length and an inch in diameter are thus severed by these 
insects, a kind of pruning that must be injurious to the trees, and 
should be guarded against if possible. By collecting the fallen 
branches in the autumn, and burning them before the spring, we 
prevent the development of the beetles, while we derive some 
benefit from the branches as fuel. 

It is somewhat remarkable that, while the pine and fir tribes 
rarely suffer to any extent from the depredations of caterpillars 
and other leaf-eating insects, the resinous odor of these trees, 
offensive as it is to such insects, does not prevent many kinds of 
borers from burrowing into and destroying their trunks. Several 
of the Capricorn-beetles, while in the grub state, live only in pine 
and fir trees, or in timber of these kinds of wood. They belong 
chiefly to the genus Callidium, a name of unknown or obscure 
origin. Their antennae are of moderate length ; they have a 
somewhat flattened body ; the head nods forwards, as in Stenoco- 
rus ; the thorax is broad, nearly circular, and somewhat flattened 
or indented above ; and the thighs are very slender next to the 
body, but remarkably thick beyond the middle. The larvae are of 
moderate length, more flattened than the grubs of the other Capri- 
corn-beetles, have a very broad and horny head, small but power- 
ful jaws, and are provided with six extremely small legs. They 
undermine the bark, and perforate the wood in various directions, 
often doing immense injury to the trees, and to new buildings, in 
the lumber composing which they may happen to be concealed. 
Their burrows are wide and not cylindrical, are very winding, 
and are filled up with a kind of compact saw-dust as fast as the 
insects advance. The larva state is said to continue two years, 
during which period the insects cast their skins several times. 



COLEOPTERA. 83 

The sides of the body in the pupa are thin-edged, and finely 
notched, and the tail is forked. 

One of the most common kinds of CaJlicHum found here is a 
flattish, rusty black beetle, with some downy whitish spots across 
the middle of the wing-covers ; the thorax is nearly circular, is 
covered with fine whitish down, and has two elevated polished 
black points upon it ; and the wing-covers are very coarsely punc- 
tured. It measures from four tenths to three quarters of an inch 
in length. This insect is the Callidium bajulus ; the second 
name, meaning a porter, was given to it by Linnaeus on account 
of the whitish patch which it bears on its back. It inhabits fir, 
spruce, and hemlock wood and lumber, and may often be seen on 
wooden buildings and fences in July and August. We are inform- 
ed by Kirby and Spence that the grubs sometimes greatly injure 
the wood-work of houses in London, piercing the rafters of the 
roofs in every direction, and, when arrived at maturity, even pene- 
trating through sheets of lead which covered the place of their 
exit. One piece of lead, only eight inches long and four broad, 
contained twelve oval holes made by these insects, and fragments 
of the lead were found in their stomachs. As this insect is now 
common in the maritime parts of the United States, it was prob- 
ably first brought to this country by vessels from Europe. 

The violet Callidium, CoUidinm vio/aceiim*, is of a Prussian 
blue or violet color ; the thorax is transversely oval, and downy, 
and sometimes has a greenish tinge ; and the wing-covers are 
rough with thick irregular punctures. Its length varies from four 
to six tenths of an inch. It may be found in great abundance on 
piles of pine wood, from the middle of May to the first of June ; 
and the larvae and pupae are often met with in splitting the wood. 
They live mostly just under the bark, where their broad and wind- 
ing tracks may be traced by the hardened saw-dust with which 
they are crowded. Just before they are about to be transformed, 
they bore into the solid wood to the depth of several inches. 
They are said to be very injurious to the sapling pines in Maine. 
Professor Peck supposed this species of Callidium to have been 
introduced into Europe in timber exported from this country, as it 

" Cerambtjx violaceus of Linnaeus. 



84 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

is found in most parts of that continent that have been much con- 
nected with North America by navigation. It is somewhat re- 
markable that Europe and America should have thus interchanged 
the porter and violet Callidium, which, by means of shipping, have 
now become common to the two continents. 

From the regularity of its form, and the noble size it attains, 
the sugar maple is accounted one of the most beautiful of our 
forest-trees, and is esteemed as one of the most valuable, on ac- 
count of its many useful properties. This fine tree suffers much 
from the attacks of borers, which in some cases produce its entire 
destruction. We are indebted to the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of 
Dublin, N. H., for the first account of the habits and transforma- 
tions of these borers. In the summer of 1828, his attention was 
called to some young maples, in Keene, which were in a lan- 
guishing condition. He discovered the insect in its beetle state 
under the loosened bark of one of the trees, and traced the recent 
track of the larva three inches into the solid wood. In the course 
of a few years, these trees, upon the cultivation of which much 
care had been bestowed, were nearly destroyed by the borers. 
The failure, from the same cause, of several other attempts to 
raise the sugar maple, has since come to my knowledge. The 
insects are changed to beetles and come out of the trunks of the 
trees in July. In the vicinity of Boston, specimens have been 
repeatedly taken, which were undoubtedly brought here in maple 
logs from Maine. I regret that 1 have not been able to obtain a 
larva of this insect for examination. The beetle was first de- 
scribed in 1824, in the Appendix to Keating's "Narrative of 
Long's Expedition", by Mr. Say, who called it Clytus speciosus, 
that is, the beautiful Clytus. It was afterwards inserted, and ac- 
curately represented by the pencil of Lesueur, in Say's " Amer- 
ican Entomology ", and, more recently, a description and figure of 
it has appeared in Griffith's translation of Cuvier's " Animal 
Kingdom", under the name of C!ytus Hayii. The beautiful 
Clytus, like the other beetles of the genus to which it belongs, is 
distinguished from a Callidium by its more convex form, its more 
nearly globular thorax, which is neither flattened nor indented, 
and by its more slender thighs. The head is yellow, with the 
antennae and the eyes reddish black ', the thorax is black, with two 



COLEOPTERA. 85 

transverse yellow spots on each side ; the wing-covers, for about 
two-thirds of their length, are black, the remaining third is yellow, 
and they are ornamented with bands and spots arranged in the 
following manner ; a yellow spot on each shoulder, a broad yel- 
low curved band or arch, of which the yellow scutel forms the 
key-stone, on the base of the wing-covers, behind this a zigzag 
yellow band forming the letter W, across the middle another yel- 
low band arching backwards, and on the yellow tip a curved band 
and a spot of a black color ; the legs are yellow ; and the under- 
side of the body is reddish yellow, variegated with brown. It is 
the largest known species of Clytus, being from nine to eleven 
tenths of an inch in length, and three or four tenths in breadth. It 
lays its eggs on the trunk of the maple in July and August. The 
grubs burrow into the bark as soon as they are hatched, and are 
thus protected during the winter. In the spring they penetrate 
deeper, and form, in the course of the summer, long and winding 
galleries in the wood, up and down the trunk. In order to check 
their devastations, they should be sought for in the spring, when 
they will readily be detected by the saw-dust that they cast out of 
their burrows ; and, by a judicious use of a knife and stiff wire, 
they may be cut out or destroyed before they have gone deeply 
into the wood. 

Many kinds of Clytus frequent flowers, for the sake of the pol- 
len, which they devour. During the month of September, the 
painted Clytus, Clytus pictus,* is often seen in abundance, feed- 
ing by day upon the blossoms of the golden-rod. If the trunks 
of our common locust-tree, Rohinia psciidacacia, are examined at 
this time, a still greater number of these beetles will be found 
upon them, and most often paired. The habits of this insect 
seem to have been known, as long ago as the year 1771, to Dr. 
John Reinhold Forster, who then described it under the name of 
Leptura Robudce, the latter being derived from the tree wiiich it 
inhabits. Drury, however, had previously described and figured 
it, under the specific name here adopted, which, having the prior- 
ity, in point of time, over all the others that have been subse- 
quently imposed, must be retained. This Capricorn-beetle has 

* Leptura picta, Drury ; Clytus flexuosus, Fabricius. 



86 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the form of the beautiful maple Clytus. It is velvet-black, and 
ornamented with transverse yellow bands, of which there are 
three on the head, four on the thorax, and six on the wing-covers, 
the tips of which are also edged with yellow. The first and 
second bands on each wing-cover are nearly straight ; the third 
band forms a V, or, united with the opposite one, a W, as in the 
speciosus ; the fourth is also angled, and runs upwards on the 
inner margin of the wing-cover towards the scutel ; the fifth is 
broken or interrupted by a longitudinal elevated line ; and the 
sixth is arched, and consists of three little spots. The antennae 
are dark brown ; and the legs are rust-red. These insects vary 
from six tenths to three quarters of an inch in length. 

In the month of September these beetles gather on the locust- 
trees, where they may be seen glittering in the sun-beams with 
their gorgeous livery of black velvet and gold, coursing up and 
down the trunks in pursuit of their mates, or to drive away their 
rivals, and stopping every now and then to salute those they meet 
with a rapid bowing of the shoulders, accompanied by a creaking 
sound, indicative of recognition or defiance. Having paired, the 
female, attended by her partner, creeps over the bark, searching 
the crevices with her antennae, and dropping therein her snow- 
white eggs, in clusters of seven or eight together, and at intervals 
of five or six minutes, till her whole stock is safely stored. The 
eggs are soon hatched, and the grubs immediately burrow into the 
bark, devouring the soft inner substance that suffices for their 
nourishment till the approach of winter, during which they remain 
at rest in a torpid state. In the spring they bore through the sap- 
wood, more or less deeply into the trunk, the general course of 
their'winding and irregular passages, being in an upward direction 
from the place of their entrance. For a time they cast their chips 
out of their holes as fast as they are made, but after a while the 
passage becomes clogged and the burrow more or less filled with 
the coarse and fibrous fragments of wood, to get rid of which the 
grubs are often obliged to open new holes through the bark. The 
seat of their operations is known by the oozing of the sap and the 
dropping of the saw-dust from the holes. The bark around the 
part attacked begins to swell, and in a few years the trunks and 
limbs will become disfigured and weakened by large porous 



COLEOPTERA. 87 

tumors, caused by the efforts of the trees to repair the injuries 
they have suffered. According to the observations of General 
H. A. S. Dearborn, vi'ho has given an excellent account* of this 
insect, the grubs attain their full size by the twentieth of July, 
soon become pups, and are changed to beetles and leave the trees 
early in September. Thus the existence of this species is limited 
to one year. 

While-washing, and covering the trunks of the trees with graft- 
ing composition, may prevent the female from depositing her eggs 
upon them ; but this practice cannot be carried to any great ex- 
tent in plantations or large nurseries of the trees. Perhaps it will 
be useful to head down young trees to the ground, with the view 
of destroying the grubs contained in them, as well as to promote 
a more vigorous growth. Much evil might be prevented by em- 
ploying children to collect the beetles while in the act of providing 
for the continuation of their kind. A common black bottle, con- 
taining a little water, would be a suitable vessel to receive the 
beetles as fast as they were gathered, and should be emptied into 
the fire in order to destroy the insects. The gathering should be 
begun as soon as the beetles first appear, and should be continued 
as long as any are found on the trees, and furthermore should be 
made a general business for several years in succession. I have 
no doubt, should this be done, that, by devoting one hour every 
day to this object, we may, in the course of a few years, rid our- 
selves of this destructive insect. 

The largest Capricorn-beetle, of the Cerambycian family, found 
in New England, is the Lamia [Monohammus) tiliUator of Fabri- 
cius, or the tickler, so named probably on account of the habit 
which it has, in common with most of the Capricorn-beetles, of 
gently touching now and then the surface on which it walks with 
the tips of its long antennae. Three or four of these beetles may 
sometimes be seen together in June and July, on logs or on the 
trunks of trees in the woods, the males paying their court to the 
females, or contending with their rivals, waving their antennae, and 
showing the eagerness of the contest or pursuit by their rapid 
creaking sounds. 

* Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, Vol. VI. p. 272. 



88 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The head of the Lamias is vertical or perpendicular ; the an- 
tennae of the males are much longer than the body, and taper to 
the end ; the thorax is cylindrical before and behind, and is armed 
on the middle of each side with a very large pointed wart or 
tubercle ; the tips of the wing-covers are rounded ; and the fore- 
legs are longer than the rest, with broad hairy soles in the males. 

The titiUator is of a brownish color, variegated or mottled 
with spots, of gray, and the wing-covers, which are coarsely 
punctured, have also several small tufted black spots upon them ; 
the middle legs are armed with a small tooth on the upper edge ; 
the antennae of the male are twice as long as the body, and those 
of the other sex equal the body in length, which measures from 
one inch and one eighth to one inch and one quarter. What kind 
of tree the grub of this insect inhabits is unknown to me. 

Trees of the poplar tribe, both in Europe and America, are 
subject to the attacks of certain kinds of borers, differing essen- 
tially from all the foregoing when arrived at maturity. They be- 
long to the genus Saperda. In the beetle state the head is ver- 
tical, the antennae are about the length of the body in both sexes, 
the thorax is cylindrical, smooth, and unarmed at the sides, and 
the fore-legs are shorter than the others. Our largest kind is the 
Saperda calcarata of Say, or the spurred Saperda, so named be- 
cause the tips of the wing-covers end with a little sharp point or 
spur. It is covered all over with a short and close nap, which 
gives it a fine blue-gray color, it is finely punctured with brown, 
there are four ochre-yellow lines on the head, and three on the 
top of the thorax, the scutel is also ochre-yellow, and there are 
several irregular lines and spots of the same color on the wing- 
covers. It is from one inch to an inch and a quarter in length. 
This beetle closely resembles the European Saperda carcharias^ 
which inhabits the poplar ; and the grubs of our native species, 
with those of the broad-necked Prionus, have almost entirely de- 
stroyed the Lombardy poplar in this vicinity. They live also in 
the trunks of our American poplars. They are of a yellowish 
white color, except the upper part of the first segment, which is 
dark buff. When fully grown they measure nearly two inches in 
length. The body is very thick, rather larger before than behind, 
and consists of twelve segments separated from each other by 



COLEOPTERA. 89 

deep transverse furrows. The first segment is broad, and slopes 
obliquely downwards to the head ; the second is very narrow ; on 
the upper and under sides of each of the following segments, from 
the third to the tenth inclusive, there is a transverse oval space, 
rendered rough like a rasp by minute projections. These rasps 
serve instead of legs, which are entirely wanting. The beetles 
may be found on the trunks and branches of the various kinds of 
poplars, in August and September ; they fly by night, and some- 
times enter the open windows of houses in the evening. 

The borers of the apple-tree have become notorious, throughout 
the New England and Middle States, for their extensive ravages. 
They are the larvae of a beetle called Saperda bivittata by Mr. 
Say, the two-striped, or the brown and white striped Saperda; 
the upper side of its body being marked with two longitudinal 
white stripes between three of a light brown color, while the face, 
the antennae, the under-side of the body, and the legs, are white. 
This beetle varies in length from a little more than one half to 
three quarters of an inch. It comes forth from the trunks of the 
trees, in its perfected state, early in June, making its escape in the 
night, during which time only it uses its ample wings in going 
from tree to tree in search of companions and food. In the day- 
time it keeps at rest among the leaves of the plants which it de* 
vours. The trees and shrubs principally attacked by this borer, 
are the apple-tree, the quince, mountain ash, hawthorn and other 
thorn bushes, the June-berry or shad-bush, and other kinds of 
Amelanchier and Aroriia. Our native thorns and Aronias are its 
natural food ; for I have discovered the larvae in the stems of 
these shrubs, and have repeatedly found the beetles upon them, 
eating the leaves, in .lune and July. It is in these months that the 
eggs are deposited, being laid upon the bark near the root, during 
the night. The larva3 hatched therefrom are fleshy whitish grubs, 
nearly cylindrical, and tapering a little from the first ring to the 
end of the body. The head is small, horny, and brown ; the 
first ring is much larger than the others, the next two are very 
short, and, with the first, are covered with punctures and very 
minute hairs ; the following rings, to the tenth inclusive, are each 
furnished, on the upper and under side, with two fleshy warts 
situated close together, and destitute of the little rasp-like teeth, 
12 



90 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

that are usually found on the grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles ; 
the eleventh and twelfth rings are very short ; no appearance of 
legs can be seen, even with a magnifying glass of high power. 
The grub, with its strong jaws, cuts a cylindrical passage through 
the bark, and pushes its castings backwards out of the hole from 
time to time, while it bores upwards into the wood. The larva 
state continues two or three years, during which the borer will be 
found to have penetrated eight or ten inches upwards in the trunk 
of the tree, its burrow at the end approaching to, and being cov- 
ered only by, the bark. Here its transformation takes place. The 
pupa does not differ much from other pupae of beetles ; but it has 
a transverse row of minute prickles on each of the rings of the 
back, and several at the tip of the abdomen. These probably 
assist the insect in its movements, when casting off its pupa-skin. 
The final change occurs about the first of June, soon after which, 
the beetle gnaws through the bark that covers the end of its bur- 
row, and comes out of its place of confinement in the night. 

Notwithstanding the pains that have been taken by some per- 
sons to destroy and exterminate these pernicious borers, they 
continue to reappear in our orchards and nurseries every season. 
The reasons of this are to be found in the habits of the insects, 
and in individual carelessness. Many orchards suffer deplorably 
from the want of proper attention ; the trees are permitted to 
remain, year after year, without any pains being taken to destroy 
the numerous and various insects that infest them ; old orchards, 
especially, are neglected, and not only the rugged trunks of the 
trees, but even a forest of unpruned suckers around them, are left 
to the undisturbed possession and perpetual inheritance of the Sa- 
perda. On the means that have been used to destroy this borer, a 
few remarks only need to be made ; for it is evident that they can 
be fully successful only when generally adopted. Killing it by a 
wire thrust into the holes it has made, is one of the oldest, safest, 
and most successful methods. Cutting out the grub, with a knife 
or gouge, is the most common practice ; but it is feared that these 
tools have sometimes been used without sufiicient caution. A 
third method, which has more than once been suggested, consists 
in plugging the holes with soft wood. If a little camphor be pre- 



COLEOPTERA. 91 

viously inserted, this practice promises to be more effectual ; but 
experiments are wanting to confirm its expediency. 

The tall blackberry, Rubus vi/losus, is sometimes cultivated 
among us for the sake of its fruit, which richly repays the care 
thus bestowed upon it. It does not seem to be known that this 
plant and its near relation, the raspberry, suffer from borers that 
live in the pith of the stems. These borers differ somewhat from 
the preceding, being cylindrical in the middle, and thickened a 
little at each end. The head is proportionally larger than in the 
other borers ; the first three rings of the body are short, the 
second being the widest, and each of them is provided beneath 
with a pair of minute sharp-pointed warts or imperfect legs ; the 
remaining rings are smooth, and without tubercles or rasps ; the 
last three are rather thicker than those which immediately precede 
them, and the twelfth ring is very obtusely rounded at the end. 
The beetles from these borers are very slender, and of a cylin- 
drical form, and their antennae are of moderate length and do not 
taper much towards the end. The species which attacks the 
blackberry appears to be the Saperda (^Oberea) tripunctata of 
Fabricius. It is of a deep black color, except the forepart of the 
breast and the top of the thorax, which are rusty yellow, and 
there are two black elevated dots on the middle of the thorax, and 
a third dot on the hinder edge close to the scutel ; the wing- 
covers are coarsely punctured, in rows on the top, and irreg- 
ularly on the sides and tips, each of which is slightly notch- 
ed and ends with two little points. The two black dots on 
the middle of the thorax are sometimes wanting. This beetle 
varies from three tenths to half an inch in length. It finishes its 
transformations towards the end of July, and lays its eggs early in 
August, one by one, on the stems of the blackberry and rasp- 
berry, near a leaf or small twig. The grubs burrow directly into 
the pith, which they consume as they proceed, so that the stem, 
for the distance of several inches, is completely deprived of its 
pith, and consequently withers and dies before the end of the 
summer. In Europe one of these slender Saperdas attacks the 
hazel-bush, and another the twigs of the pear-tree, in the same 
way. There are two more kinds in the New England States ; 
but their habits are unknown to me. 



92 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The Lepturians, or Lepturad^, constitute the third family 
of the Capricorn-beetles. In most of them the body is narrowed 
behind, which is the origin of the name applied to them, signify- 
ing really narrow tail. They differ from the other Capricorn- 
beetles in the form of their eyes, which are not deeply notched, but 
are either oval or rounded and prominent, and the antennae are more 
distant from them, and are implanted near the middle of the fore- 
head. Moreover the head is not deeply sunk in the forepart of 
the thorax, but is connected with it by a narrowed neck. The 
thorax varies somewhat in shape, but is generally narrowed before 
and widened behind. The Lepturians are often gayly colored, and 
fly about by day, visiting flowers for the' sake of the pollen and 
tender leaves, which they eat. Their grubs live in the trunks and 
stumps of trees, are rather broad and somewhat flattened, and are 
mostly furnished with six extremely short legs. 

The largest and finest of these beetles in New England is the 
Desmocerus palliatus*, which appears on the flowers and leaves 
of the common elder towards the end of June and until the mid- 
dle of July. It is of a deep violet or Prussian blue color, some- 
times glossed with green, and nearly one half of the forepart of 
the wing-covers is orange-yellow, suggesting the idea of a short 
cloak of this color thrown over the shoulders, which the name 
pnlliatus, that is cloaked, was designed to express. The head is 
narrow. The thorax has nearly the form of a cone cut off at the 
top, being narrow before and wide behind; it is somewhat uneven, 
and has a little sharp projecting point on each side of the base. 
The antennse have the third and the three following joints ab- 
ruptly thickened at the extremity, giving them the knotty appear- 
ance indicated by the generical name Democerus, which signifies 
knotty horn. The larvae live in the lower pairt of the stems of 
the elder, and devour the pith ; they have hitherto escaped my 
researches, but I have found the beetles in the burrows made by 
them. 

The bark of the pitch-pine is often extensively loosened by the 
grubs of Lepturians at work beneath it, in consequence of which 
it falls off in large flakes, and the tree perishes. These grubs live 

* Cerambyx palliatus of Forster ; Stenocorus ajaneus, Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. 93 

between the bark and the wood, often in great numbers together, 
and, when they are about to become pupae, each one surrounds 
itself with an oval ring of woody fibres, within which it undergoes 
its transformations. The beetle is matured before winter, but 
does not leave the tree until spring. It is the ribbed Rhagium, 
or Rhagium lineatum*^ so named because it has three elevated 
longitudinal lines or ribs on each wing-cover ; and it measures from 
four and a half to seven tenths of an inch in length. The head 
and thorax are gray, striped with black, and thickly punctured ; 
the antennae are about as long as the two forenamed parts of the 
body together ; the thorax is narrow, cylindrical before and behind, 
and swelled out in the middle by a large pointed wart or tubercle 
on each side ; the wing-covers are wide at the shoulders, grad- 
ually taper behind, and are slightly convex above ; they are 
coarsely punctured between the smooth elevated lines, and are 
variegated with reddish ash-color and black, the latter forming 
two irregular transverse bands ; the under-side of the body, and 
the legs, are variegated with dull red, gray, and black. The gray 
portions on this beetle are occasioned by very short hairs, forming 
a close kind of nap, which is easily rubbed off. 

Mr. Say thought the foregoing to be the only species of Rha- 
gium in the United States. There is, however, another one, 
closely allied in form to the willow Rhagium of Europe, which 
was obtained by Mr. Leonard in Dublin, N. H., and the same 
insect has been found in other parts of New England. It does 
not appear to have been described, and is the Rhagium decolora- 
ium of my Catalogue, so named because the wing-covers appear 
discolored, as if their original hue had faded away. It is from 
eight tenths of an inch to one inch, or rather more, in length. It 
is proportionally longer and narrower than the ribbed Rhagium, 
and its antennae are two thirds the length of the body ; its wing- 
covers are smooth or not ribbed, and of a dirty brownish yellow 
or clay color ; the rest of the body, the legs, and the antennae, 
are reddish brown. It is possible that this may be only a variety 
of a species which has blue or blackish wing-covers ; but all the 
specimens that have fallen under my observation are alike. 

* Stenocorus lineatus of Olivier. 



94 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Twenty-nine more of the Lepturians are found in this part of 
the United States, and some of them are insects of very great 
beauty ; but, as the habits of their larvse are unknown to me, it 
would be of little use to insert here descriptions of the beetles 
only. 

The Buprestians and the Capricorn-beetles seem evidently 
allied in their habits, both being borers during the greater part of 
their lives, and living in the trunks and limbs of trees, to which 
they are more or less injurious in proportion to their numbers. 
These two groups are widely separated by most naturalists ; but 
by placing them, with the other groups that intervene, in a circle, 
the two extremes will be brought together as they should be, if 
the natural characters bestowed on these insects are regarded in 
our scientific arrangements. Some of the beetles in these two 
groups resemble each other closely in their forms and habits. 
The resemblance, between the slender cylindrical Saperdas and 
some of the cylindrical Buprestians belonging to the genus Agrilus, 
is indeed very remarkable, and cannot fail to strike a common 
observer. Their larvse also are not only very similar in their 
forms, but they have the same habits ; living in the centre of stems, 
and devouring the pith. 

The insects, that have passed under consideration in the fore- 
going part of this essay, spend by far the greater portion of their 
lives, namely, that wherein they are larvae only, in obscurity, 
buried in the ground, or concealed within the roots, the stems, or 
the seeds of plants, where they perform their appointed tasks un- 
noticed and unknown. Thus the work of destruction goes secretly 
and silently on, till it becomes manifest by its melancholy conse- 
quences ; and too late we discover the hidden foes that have dis- 
appointed the hopes of the husbandman, and ruined those sponta- 
neous productions of the soil, that constitute so important a source 
of our comfort and prosperity.* 

There still remain several groups of beetles to be described, 
consisting almost entirely of insects that spend the whole, or the 
principal part, of their lives upon the leaves of plants, and which, 
as they derive their nourishment, both in the larva and adult states, 
from leaves alone, may be called leaf-beetles, or, as they have 
recently been named, phyllophagous, that is leaf-eating insects. 



COLEOPTERA. 95 

When, as in certain seasons, they appear in considerable numbers, 
they do not a little injury to vegetation, and, being generally ex- 
posed to view on the leaves that they devour, they soon attract 
attention. But the power possessed by most plants of renewing 
their foliage, enables them soon to recover from the attacks of these 
devourers ; and the injury sustained, unless often repeated, is 
rarely attended by the ruinous consequences that follow the hid- 
den and unsuspected ravages of those insects that sap vegetation 
in its most vital parts. Moreover, the leaf-eaters are more within 
our reach, and it is not so difficult to destroy them, and protect 
plants from their depredations. The leaf-beetles are generally 
distinguished by the want of a snout, by their short legs and 
broad cushioned feet, and their antennae of moderate length, often 
thickened a little towards the end, or not distinctly tapering. 
Some of them have an oblong body and a narrow or cylindrical 
thorax, and resemble very much some of the Lepturians, with 
which Linnaeus included them. Others, and indeed the greater 
number, have the body oval, broad, and often very convex. 

The oblong leaf-beetles, called Criocerians (CRiocERiDiDiE), 
have some resemblance to the Capricorn-beetles. They are dis- 
tinguished by the following characters. The eyes are nearly 
round and prominent ; the antennae are of moderate length, com- 
posed of short, nearly cylindrical or beaded joints, and are im- 
planted before the eyes ; the thorax is narrow and almost cylin- 
drical or square ; the wing-covers, taken together, form an oblong 
square, rounded behind, and much wider than the thorax ; and 
the thighs of the hind-legs are often thickened in the middle. 

The three-lined leaf-beetle, Crioceris trilineata of Olivier, will 
serve to exemplify the habits of the greater part of the insects of 
this family. This beetle is about one quarter of an inch long, of a 
rusty buff or nankin-yellow color, with two black dots on the 
thorax, and three black stripes on the back, namely, one on the 
outer side of each wing-cover, and one in the middle on the 
inner edges of the same; the antennae (except the first joint), the 
outside of the shins, and the feet are dusky. The thorax is ab- 
ruptly narrowed or pinched in on the middle of each side. When 
held between the fingers, these insects make a creaking sound like 
the Capricorn-beetles. They appear early in June on the leaves 



96 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

of the potato-vines, having at that time recently come out of the 
ground, where they pass the winter in the pupa state. They eat 
the leaves of the potato, gnawing irregular holes through them ; 
and, in the course of a few days, begin to lay their oblong oval 
golden yellow eggs, which are glued to the leaves, in parcels of 
six or eight together. The grubs, which are hatched in about a 
fortnight afterwards, are of a dirty yellowish or ashen white color, 
with a darker colored head, and two dark spots on the top of the 
first ring. They are rather short, approaching to a cylindrical 
form, but thickest in the middle, and have six legs, arranged in 
pairs beneath the first three rings. After making a hearty meal 
upon the leaves of the potato, they cover themselves with their 
own filth. The vent is situated on the upper side of the last 
ring, so that their dung falls upon their backs, and, by motions 
of the body made for this purpose, is pushed forwards, as fast as 
it accumulates, towards the head, until the whole of the back is 
entirely coated with it. This covering shelters their soft and ten- 
der bodies from the heat of the sun, and probably serves to secure 
them from the attacks of their enemies. When it becomes too 
heavy or too dry, it is thrown off, but replaced again by a fresh 
coat in the course of a few hours. In eating, the grubs move 
backwards, never devouring the portion of the leaf immediately 
before the head, but that which lies under it. Their numbers are 
sometimes very great, and the leaves are then covered and nearly 
consumed by these filthy insects. When about fifteen days old 
they throw off their loads, creep down the plant, and bury them- 
selves in the ground. Here each one forms for itself a little cell 
of earth cemented and varnished within by a gummy fluid dis- 
charged from its mouth, and when this is done, it changes to a 
pupa. In about a fortnight more the insect throws oft' its pupa 
skin, breaks open its earthen cell, and crawls out of the ground. 
The beetles come out towards the end of July or early in August, 
and lay their eggs for a second brood of grubs. The latter come 
to their growth and go into the ground in the autumn, and remain 
there in the pupa form during the winter. 

The only method that occurs to me, by means of which we 
may get rid of these insects, when they are so numerous as to be 
seriously injurious to plants, is to brush them from the leaves into 
shallow vessels, containing a little salt and water or vinegar. 



COLEOPTERA. 97 

The habits of the Hispas, Httle leaf-beetles, forming the family 
HispAD^, were first made known by me in the year 1835, in the 
" Boston Journal of Natural History",* where a detailed account 
of them, with descriptions of three native species, and figures of 
the larvas and pupae, may be found. The upper side of the bee- 
tles is generally rough, as the generical name implies. The larvae 
burrow under the skin of the leaves of plants, and eat the pulpy 
substance within, so that the skin, over and under the place of its 
operations, turns brown and dries, and has somewhat of a blistered 
appearance, and within these blistered spots the larvae or grubs, 
the pupae, or the beetles may often be found. The eggs of these 
insects are little rough blackish grains, and are glued to the upper 
side of the leaves, sometimes singly, and sometimes in clusters of 
four or five together. The grubs of our common species are 
about one fifth of an inch in length, when fully grown. The body 
is oblong, flattened, rather broader before than behind, soft, and of 
a whitish color, except the head and the top of the first ring, which 
are brown, or blackish, and of a horny consistence. It has a pair 
of legs to each of the first three rings ; the other rings are pro- 
vided with small fleshy warts at the sides, and transverse rows of 
little rasp-like points above and beneath. The pupa state lasts 
only about one week, soon after which the beetles come out of 
their burrows. 

The leaves of the apple-tree are inhabited by some of these 
little mining insects, which, in the beetle state, are probably the 
Hispa roseaf of Weber, or the rosy Hispa. They are of a deep 
tawny or reddish yellow color above, marked with little deep red 
lines and spots. The head is small ; the antennas are short, thick- 
ened towards the end, and of a black color ; the thorax is narrow 
before and wide behind, rough above, striped with deep red on 
each side ; the wing-covers taken together form an oblong square ; 
there are three smooth longitudinal lines or ribs on each of them 
spotted with blood red, and the spaces between these lines are 
deeply punctured in double rows ; the under-side of the body is 
black, and the legs are short and reddish. They measure about 



* Vol. I. page 141. 

t Hispa quadrata, Fabricius ; H. marginata, Say. 

13 



98 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

one fifth of an inch in length. These beetles may be found on the 
leaves of the apple-tree, and very abundantly on those of the shad- 
bush [AmeJanchier ovalis), and choke-berry [Pyrus arbutifolia), 
during the latter part of May and the beginning of June. 

The grubs of another species may be found in the leaves of the 
locust-tree in July. The beetles appear in August. They 
measure nearly one quarter of an inch in length, are of a tawny 
yellow color, with a black longitudinal line on the middle of the 
back, partly on one and partly on the other wing-cover, the inner 
edges of which meet together and form what is called the suture ; 
whence this species was named Hispa suturalis by Fabricius ; 
the head, antennae, body beneath, and legs are black ; and the 
wing-covers are not so square behind as in the rosy Hispa. 

The tortoise-beetles, as they are familiarly called from their 
shape, are leaf-eating insects, belonging to the family Cassidad^. 
This name, derived from a word signifying a helmet, is applied to 
them because the forepart of the semicircular thorax generally 
projects over the head like the front of a helmet. In these beetles 
the body is broad oval or rounded, flat beneath, and slightly con- 
vex above. The antennae are short, slightly thickened at the 
end, and inserted close together on the crown of the head. The 
latter is small, and concealed under, or deeply sunk into, the 
thorax. The legs are very short, and hardly seen from above. 
These insects are often gayly colored or spotted, which increases 
their resemblance to a tortoise ; they creep slowly, and fly by 
day. Their larvae and pupae resemble those of the following spe- 
cies in most respects. 

Cassida aurichalcea, so named by Fabricius on account of the 
brilliant brassy or golden lustre it assumes, is found during most 
of the summer months on the leaves of the bitter-sweet {Solanum 
dulcamara)^ and in great abundance on various kinds of Convol- 
vulus, such as our large flowered Convolvulus sepium^ the morning 
glory, and the sweet potato-vine. The leaves of these plants are 
eaten both by the beetles and their young. The former begin to 
appear during the months of May and June, having probably sur- 
vived the winter in some place of shelter and concealment, and 
their larvae in a week or two afterwards. The larvae are broad 
oval, flattened, dark-colored grubs, with a kind of fringe, com- 



COLEOPTERA. 99 

posed of stiff prickles, around the thin edges of the body, and a 
long forked tail. This fork serves to hold the excrement when 
voided ; and a mass of it half as large as the body of the insect is 
often thus accumulated. The tail, with the loaded fork, is turned 
over the back, and thus protects the insect from the sun, and 
probably also from its enemies. The first broods of larvae arrive 
at their growth and change to pupae early in July, fixing them- 
selves firmly by the hinder part of their bodies to the leaves, 
when this change is about to take place. The pupa remains fast- 
ened to the cast-skin of the larva. It is broad oval, fringed, at 
the sides, and around the forepart of the broad thorax, with large 
prickles. Soon afterwards the beetles come forth, and lay their 
eggs for a second brood of grubs, which, in turn, are changed to 
beetles in the course of the autumn. In June 1824, the late Mr. 
John Lowell sent me specimens of this little beetle, which he 
found to be injurious to the sweet potato-vine, by eating large 
holes through the leaves. This beetle is very broad oval in 
shape, and about one fifth of an inch in length. When living it 
has the power of changing its hues, at one time appearing only of 
a dull yellow color, and at other times shining with the splendor 
of polished brass or gold, tinged sometimes also with the variable 
tints of pearl. The body of the insect is blackish beneath, and 
the legs are dull yellow. It loses its brilliancy after death. The 
wing-covers, the parts which exhibit the change of color, are 
lined beneath with an orange-colored paint, which seems to be 
filled with little vessels ; and these are probably the source of the 
changeable brilliancy of the insect. 

The Chrysomelians (Crysomelad^) compose an extensive 
tribe of leaf-eating beetles, formerly included in the old genus 
Chrysomela. The meaning of this word is golden beetle, and 
many of the insects, to which it was applied by Linnaeus, are of 
brilliant and metallic colors. They differ, however, so much in 
their essential characters, their forms, and their habits, that they 
are now very properly distributed into four separate groups or 
families. The first of these, called Galerucad^, or Galeru- 
cians, consists mostly of dull-colored beetles ; having an oblong 
oval, slightly convex body ; a short, and rather narrow, and un- 
even thorax ; slender antennae, more than half the length of the 



J\ 



100 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

body, and implanted close together on the forehead ; slender legs, 
which are nearly equal in size, and claws split at the end. They 
fly mostly by day, and are, by nature, either very timid or very 
cunning, for, when we attempt to take hold of them, they draw up 
their legs, and fall to the ground. They sometimes do great 
injury to plants, eating large holes in the leaves, or consuming 
entirely those that are young and tender. The larvae are rather 
short cylindrical grubs, generally of a blackish color, and are pro- 
vided with six legs. They live and feed together in swarms, and 
sometimes appear in very great numbers on the leaves of plants, 
committing ravages, at these times, as extensive as those of the 
most destructive caterpillars. This was the case in 1837 at 
Sevres, in France, and in 1838 and 1839 in Baltimore and its 
vicinity, where the elm-trees were entirely stripped of their leaves 
during midsummer by swarms of the larvse of Galeruca Cahnari- 
ensis ; and, in the latter place, after the trees had begun to revive, 
and were clothed with fresh leaves, they were again attacked by 
new broods of these noxious grubs. These insects, which were 
undoubtedly introduced into An\erica with the European elm, are 
as yet unknown in the New England States. The eggs of the 
Galerucians are generally laid in little clusters or rows along the 
veins of the leaves, and those of the elm Galeruca are of a yel- 
low color. The pupa state of some species occurs on the leaves, 
of others in the ground ; and some of the larvse live also in the 
ground on the roots of plants. This is probably the case with 
those of the cucumber-beetle. This destructive insect is the 
Galeruca vittata*^ or striped Galeruca, generally known here by 
the names of striped bug and cucumber-bug. It is of a light yellow 
color above, with a black head, and a broad black stripe on each 
wing-cover, the inner edge or suture of which is also black, form- 
ing a third narrower stripe down the middle of the back ; the ab- 
domen, the greater part of the fore-legs, and the knees and feet 
of the other legs, are black. It is rather less than one fifth of an 
inch long. Early in the spring it devours the tender leaves of 
various plants. I have found it often on those of our Aronias, 
Amelanchier botryapium and ovalis, and Fyrus arbudfolia, to- 

* Crioceris vittata of Fabricius. 



/ 



COLEOPTERA. 101 

wards the end of April. It makes its first appearance, on cucum- 
ber, squash, and melon vines, about the last of May and first of 
June, or as soon as the leaves begin to expand ; and, as several 
broods are produced in the course of the summer, it may be 
found at various times on these plants, till the latter are destroyed 
by frost. Great numbers of these little beetles may be obtained 
in the autumn from the flowers of squash and pumpkin vines, the 
pollen and germs of which they are very fond of. They get into 
the blossoms as soon as the latter are opened, and are often 
caught there by the twisting and closing of the top of the flower ; 
and, when they want to make their escape, they are obliged to 
gnaw a hole through the side of their temporary prison. The 
females lay their eggs in the ground, and the larvae probably feed 
on the roots of plants, but they have hitherto escaped my re- 
searches. 

Various means have been suggested and tried to prevent the 
ravages of these striped cucumber-beetles, which have become 
notorious throughout the country for their attacks upon the leaves 
of the cucumber and squash. Dr. B. S. Barton, of Philadelphia, 
recommended sprinkling the vines with a mixture of tobacco and 
red pepper, which he stated to be attended with great benefit. 
Watering the vines with a solution of one ounce of Glauber's salts 
in a quart of water, or with tobacco water, an infusion of elder, 
of walnut leaves, or of hops, has been highly recommended. Mr. 
Gourgas, of Weston, has found no application so useful as ground 
plaster of Paris ; and a writer in the " American Farmer" extols 
the use of charcoal dust. Deane recommended sifting powdered 
soot upon the plants when they are wet with the morning dew, 
and others have advised sulphur and Scotch snuff to be apphed in 
the same way. As these insects fly by night, as well as by day, 
and are attracted by lights, lighted splinters of pine knots or of 
staves of tar-barrels, stuck into the ground during the night, 
around the plants, have been found useful in destroying these 
beetles. The most effectual preservative both against these in- 
sects and the equally destructive black flea-beetles which infest 
the vines in the spring, consists in covering the young vines with 
millinet stretched over small wooden frames. Mr. Levi Bartlett, 
of Warner, N. H., has described a method for making these 



102 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

frames expeditiously and economically, and his directions may be 
found in the second volume of the "New England Farmer",* 
and in Fessenden's "New American Gardener",! under the 
article Cucumber. 

The cucumber flea-beetle above mentioned, a little, black, 
jumping insect, well known for the injury done by it, in the 
spring, to young cucumber plants, belongs to another family of 
the Chrysomelian tribe, called Halticad^e. The following are 
the chief peculiarities of the beetles of this family. The body is 
oval and very convex above ; the thorax is short, nearly or quite 
as wide as the wing-covers behind, and narrowed before ; the 
head is pretty broad ; the antennae are slender, about half the 
length of the body, and are implanted nearly on the middle of the 
forehead ; the hindmost thighs are very thick, being formed for 
leaping ; hence these insects have been called flea-beetles, and 
the scientific name Haltica, derived from a word signifying to 
leap, has been applied to them. The surface of the body is 
smooth, generally pohshed, and often prettily or brilliantly col- 
ored. The claws are very tbick at one end, are deeply notched 
towards the other, and terminate with a long curved and sharp 
point, which enables the insect to lay hold firmly upon the leaves 
of the plants on which they live. These beetles eat the leaves of 
vegetables, preferring especially plants of the cabbage, turnip, mus- 
tard, cress, radish, and horse-radish kind, or those, which, in 
botanical language, are called cruciferous plants, to which they are 
often exceedingly injurious. The turnip-fly or more properly 
turnip flea-beetle is one of these Halticas, which lays waste the 
turnip fields in Europe, devouring the seed-leaves of the plants as 
soon as they appear above the ground, and continuing their ravages 
upon new crops throughout the summer. It is stated in Young's 
"Annals of Agriculture":]: that the loss, in Devonshire, Eng- 
land, in one season, from the destruction of the turnip crops by 
this little insect, was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds 
sterling. Another small flea-beetle is often very injurious to the 
grape-vines in Europe, and a larger species attacks the same 



* Pacre 305. t Sixth edition, page 91. | Vol. VII., p. 102. 



COLEOPTERA. 103 

plant in this country. The flea-beetles conceal themselves during 
the winter, in dry places, under stones, in tufts of withered grass, 
and in chinks of walls. They lay their eggs in the spring, upon 
the leaves of the plants upon which they feed. The larvae, or 
young, of the smaller kinds burrow into the leaves, and eat the 
soft pulpy substance under the skin, forming therein little winding 
passages, in which they finally complete their transformations. 
Hence the plants suffer as much from the depredations of the 
larvae, as from those of the beetles, a fact that has too often been 
overlooked. The larvae of the larger kinds are said to live ex- 
posed upon the surface of the leaves which they devour, till they 
have come to their growth, and to go into the ground, where they 
are changed to pupae, and soon afterwards to beetles. The min- 
ing larvae, the only kinds which are known to me from personal 
examination, are little slender grubs, tapering towards each end, 
and provided with six legs. They arrive at maturity, turn to 
pupae, and then to beetles in a few weeks. Hence there is a con- 
stant succession of these insects, in their various states, through- 
out the summer. The history of the greater part of our Hallicas 
or flea-beetles is still unknown ; I shall, therefore, only add, to 
the foregoing general remarks, descriptions of two or three com- 
mon species, and suggest such remedies as seem to be useful in 
protecting plants from their ravages. 

The most destructive species in this vicinity is that which 
attacks the cucumber plant as soon as the latter appears above the 
ground, eating the seed-leaves, and thereby destroying the plant 
immediately. Supposing this to be an undescribed insect, I for- 
merly named it Hallica Cucumeris, the cucumber flea-beetle ; but 
Mr. Say subsequently informed me that it was the jjubescetis of 
Illiger, so named because it is very slightly pubescent or downy. 
It is only one sixteenth of an inch long, of a black color, with 
clay-yellow antennae and legs, except the hindmost thighs, which 
are brown. The upper side of the body is covered with punc- 
tures, which are arranged in rows on the wing-cases ; and there is 
a deep transverse furrow across the hinder part of the thorax. 

The wavy-striped flea-beetle, Haltica striolata*, may be seen 



* Crioceris striolata, Fabricius. 



104 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

in great abundance on the horse-radish, various kinds of cresses, 
and on the mustard, and turnip, early in May, and indeed at other 
times throughout the summer. It is very injurious to young 
plants, destroying their seed-leaves as soon as the latter expand. 
Should it multiply to any extent, it may, in time, become as great 
a pest as the European turnip flea-beetle, which it closely resem- 
bles in its appearance, and in all its habits. Though rather larger 
than the cucumber flea-beetle, and of a longer oval shape, it is 
considerably less than one tenth of an inch in length. It is of a 
polished black color, with a broad wavy buff-colored stripe on 
each wing-cover, and the knees and feet are reddish yellow. 
Specimens are sometimes found having two buff-yellow spots on 
each wing-cover instead of the wavy stripe. These were not 
known, by Fabricius, to be merely varieties of the striolata, and 
accordingly he described them as distinct, under the name of 
bipustulata,* the two-spotted. 

The steel-blue flea-beetle, Haltica chaJybea of Illiger, or the 
grape-vine flea-beetle, as it might be called on account of its 
habits, is found in almost all parts of the United States, on wild 
and cultivated grape-vines, the buds and leaves of which it de- 
stroys. Though it has received the specific name of cJialybeo, 
meaning steel-blue, it is exceedingly variable in its color, speci- 
mens being often seen on the same vine, of a dark purple, violet, 
Prussian blue, greenish blue, and deep green color. The most 
common tint of the upper side is a glossy, deep, greenish blue ; 
the under-side is dark green ; and the antennae and feet are dull 
black. The body is oblong-oval, and the hinder part of the 
thorax is marked with a transverse furrow. It measures rather 
more than three twentieths of an inch in length. In this part of 
the country these beetles begin to come out of their winter quar- 
ters towards the end of April, and continue to appear till the 
latter part of May. Soon after their first appearance they pair, 
and probably lay their eggs on the leaves of the vine, and perhaps 
on other plants also. A second brood of the beetles is found on 
the grape-vines towards the end of July. I have not had an op- 
portunity to trace the history of these insects any further, and con- 



Crioceris bipustulata, Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. 105 

sequently their larvae are unknown to me. Mr. David Thomas 
has given an interesting account of their habits and ravages in the 
tw^enty-sixth volume of Silliraan's "American Journal of Science 
and Arts." These brilliant insects were observed by him, in the 
spring of 1831, in Cayuga County, N. Y., creeping on the vines, 
and destroying the buds, by eating out the central succulent parts. 
Some had burrowed even half their length into the buds. When 
disturbed, they jump rather than fly, and remain where they fall 
for a time without motion. During the same season these beetles 
appeared in unusually great numbers in New Haven, Conn., and its 
vicinity, and the injury done by them then was "wholly unexam- 
pled." " Some vines were entirely despoiled of their fruit buds, 
so as to be rendered, for that season, barren." Mr. Thomas 
found the vine-leaves were infested, in the years 1830 and 1831, 
^^y "small chestnut-colored smooth worms," and suspecting 
these SPbe the larvae of the be^B (which he called Chrysomela 
vitivora), he fed them in a tumbler, containing some moist earth, 
until they were fully grown, when they buried themselves in the 
earth. " After a fortnight or so," some of the beetles were found 
in the JBttbler. Hence there is no doubt that the former were the 



"l 



larvae (^^he beetles, and that they undergo their transformations 
in the ground. A good description of the larvae, and a more full 
account of their habits, seasons, and changes, .pre still wanted. 

In England, where the ravages of the turnip flea-beetle have 
attracted great attention, and have caused many and various ex- 
periments to be tried with a view of checking them, it is thought 
that " the careful and systematic use of lime will obviate, in a 
great degree, the danger which has been experienced" from this 
insect. From this and other statements in favor of the use of 
lime, there is good reason to hope that it will effectually protect 
plants from the various kinds of flea-beetles, if dusted over them, 
when wet with dew, in proper season. Watering plants with alka- 
line solutions, it is said, will kill the insects without injuring the 
plants. The solution may be made by dissolving one pound of 
hard soap in twelve gallons of the soap-suds left after washing. 
This mixture should be applied twice a day with a water-pot. 
Kollar very highly recommends watering or wetting the leaves of 
plants with an infusion or tea of wormwood, which prevents the flea- 
14 



106 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

beetles from touching them. Perhaps a decoction of walnut-leaves 
might be equally serviceable. Great numbers of the beetles may- 
be caught by the skilful use of a deep bag-net of muslin, which 
should be swept over the plants infested by the beetles, after 
which the latter may be easily destroyed. This net cannot be 
used with safety to catch the insects on very young plants, on 
account of the risk of bruising or breaking their tender leaves. 

The Chrysomelians, Chrysomelad^, properly so called, form 
the ihird family of the tribe to which I have given the same name, 
because these insects hold the chief place in it, in respect to size, 
beauty, variety, and numbers. These leaf-beetles are mostly 
broad oval, sometimes nearly hemispherical, in their form, or 
very convex above and flat beneath. The head is rather wide, 
and not concealed under the thorax. The latter is short, and 
broad behind. The antennae are about half the length of th^ 
body, and slightly thickened tc^fcrds the end, and arise ^Pm the 
sides of the head, between the eyes and the corners of the mouth ; 
being much further apart than those of the Galerucians and flea- 
beetles. The legs are rather short, nearly equal in length, and the 
hindmost thighs are not thicker than the others, and are j|^ fitted 
for leaping. The colors of these beetles are often rich^Pd bril- 
hant, among which blue and green, highly polished, and with a 
golden or metallic lustre, are the most common tints. The larvcs 
are soft-bodied, short, thick, and slug-shaped grubs, with six legs 
before, and a prop-leg behind. They live exposed on the leaves of 
plants, which they eat, and to which most of them fasten them- 
selves by the tail, when about to be transformed. Some, how- 
ever, go into the ground when about to change to pupse. Many 
of these insects, both in the larva and beetle state, have been 
found to be very injurious to vegetation in other countries ; but I 
am not aware that any of them have proved seriously injurious to 
cultivated or other valuable plants in this country. There are 
some, it is true, which may hereafter increase so as to give us 
much trouble, unless efiectual means are taken to protect and 
cherish their natural enemies, the birds. 

The largest species in New England inhabits the common milk- 
weed, or silk-weed [Asdepias Syriacn)^ upon which it may be 
found, in some or all of its states, from the middle of June till 



COLEOPTERA. 107 

September. Its head, thorax, body beneath, anteniue and legs 
are deep blue, and its wing-covers orange, with three large black 
spots upon them, namely, one on the shoulder, and another on the 
tip of each, and the third across the base of both wing-covers. 
Hence it was named Chrysunida trimaculaia by Fabricius, or the 
three-spotted Chrysomela. It is nearly three eighths of an inch 
long, and almost hemispherical. Its larvae and pupae are orange- 
colored, spotted with black, and pass through their transformations 
on the leaves of the Asclepias. 

The most elegant of our Chrysomelians is the Chryscmela 
s'cahris of Leconte, literally the ladder Chrysomela. It is about 
three tenths of an inch long, and of a narrower and more regularly 
oval shape than the preceding. The head, thorax, and under-side 
of its body are dark green, the wing-covers silvery white, orna- 
mented with small green spots on the sides, and a broad jagged 
stripe W)ng the suture or inner ^ges ; the antennae and legs are 
rust-red ; and the wings are rose-colored. It is a most beautiful 
object when flying, with its silvery wing-covers, embossed with 
green, raised up, and its rose-red wings spread out beneath them. 
Thej^jfcetles inhabit the lime or linden (Tilia Americana) ^ and 
the elUlqoon which they may be found in April, May, and June, 
and a second brood of them in September and October. They 
pass the winter in holes, and under leaves and moss. The trees 
on which they live are sometimes a good deal injured by them and 
by their larvae. The latter are hatched from eggs laid by the 
beetles on the leaves in the spring, and come to their growth 
tow^ards the end of June. They are then about six tenths of an 
inch long, of a white color, with a black line along the top of the 
back, and a row of small square black spots on each side of the 
body ; the head is horny and of an ochre-yellow color. Like the 
grubs of the preceding species, these are short, and very thick, 
the back arching upwards very much in the middle. I believe 
that they go into the ground to turn to pupse. Should they be- 
come so numerous as seriously to injure the lime and elm trees, it 
may be found useful to throw decoctions of tobacco or of walnut 
leaves on the trees by means of a garden or fire engine, a method 
which has been employed with good effect for the destruction of 
the larvae of Galeruca Calmariensis. 



108 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The most common leaf-beetle of the family under consideration 
is the blue- winged Chrysoniela, or Chrysomela ccsruleipennis of 
Say, an insect hardly distinct from the European Chrysomela 
Polygoni^ and like the latter it lives in great numbers on the com- 
mon knot-grass {Polygonum aviculare), which it completely strips 
of its leaves two or three times in the course of the summer. This 
little beetle is about three twentieths of an inch long. Its head, 
wing-covers, and body beneath are dark blue ; its thorax and legs 
are dull orange-red ; the upper side of its abdomen is also orange- 
colored ; and the antennae and feet are blackish. The females 
have a very odd appearance before they have laid their eggs, 
their abdomen being enormously swelled out like a large orange- 
colored ball, which makes it very difficult for them to move 
about. I have found these insects on the knot-grass in every 
month from April to September inclusive. The larvae eat the 
leaves ( f the same plant. ft W 

Having described the largest, the most elegant, and the most 
common of our Chrysomelians, I must omit all the rest, except 
the most splendid, which was called Eumolpus auratus by Fabri- 
cius, that is, the gilde I Eumolpus. It is of a brilliant go^i^reen 
color above, and of a deep purplish green below ; tl^^^s are 
also purple-green ; but the feet and the antennae are blackish. The 
thorax is narrower behind than the wing-covers, and the rest of the 
body is more oblong oval than in the foregoing Chrysomelians. 
It is about three eighths of an inch long. This splendid beetle 
may be found in considerable numbers on the leaves of the dog's- 
bane {Apocynum AAflrosamifolium), which it devours, during the 
months of July and August. The larvae are unknown to me. 

The fourth family of the leaf-eating Chrysomelians consists of 
the Cryptocephalians (CRYPTOCEPHALiDiE), so named from the 
principal genus Cryptocephalus, a word signifying concealed head. 
These insects somewhat resemble the beetles of the preceding 
family ; but they are of a more cylindrical form, and the head is 
bent down, and nearly concealed in the forepart of the thorax. 
Their larvae are short, cylindrical, whitish grubs, which eat the 
leaves of plants. Each one makes for itself a httle cylindrical or 
egg-shaped case, of a substance sometimes resembling clay, and 
sometimes like horn, with an opening at one end, within which 



COLEOPTERA. 109 

the grub lives, putting out its head and fore-legs when it wishes to 
eat or to move. When it is fully grown., it stops up the open end 
of its case, and changes to a pupa, and afterwards to a beetle 
within it, and then gnaws a hole through the case, in order to 
escape. As none of these insects have been observed to do 
much injury to plants in this country, I shall state nothing more 
respecting them, than that Clythra dominicana inhabits the su- 
mach, ( . qxuuriguttaia oak-trees, Chlamys gibbosa low whortle- 
berry bushes, Cryptocephalus luridus the wild indigo-bush, and 
most of the other species may be found on different kinds of oaks. 



Although the blistering-beetles, or Cantharides (Canthari- 
bidje), have been enumerated among the insects directly benefi- 
cial to man, on account of the important use made of them in 
medical practice, yet it must be admitted that they are often very 
injurious to vegetation. The green Cantharides, or Spanish-flies, 
as they are commonly called, are found in the South of Europe, 
and particularly in Spain and Italy, where they are collected in 
great quantities for exportation. In these countries they some- 
times appear in immense swarms, on the privet, lilac, and ash ; so 
that the limbs of these plants bend under their weight, and are en- 
tirely stripped of their foliage by these leaf-eating beetles. In 
like manner our native Cantharides devour the leaves of plants, 
and sometimes prove very destructive to them. 

Latreille, and other naturalists, who follow his system, arrange 
these insects between the beetles having five-jointed feet, and 
those which have only four joints in the same members. As they 
were omitted in the place assigned to them by these naturalists, 
they may, without impropriety, come under consideration at the 
end of the leaf-eating beetles, since, according to Mr. Kirby, and 
some others, they seem to lead to the insects in the order Orthop- 
tera, which follows. The Cantharides are distinguished from all 
the preceding insects by their feet, the hindmost pair of which 
have only four joints, while the first and middle pairs are five- 
jointed. In this respect they agree with many other beetles, such 
as clocks or darkling-beetles, meal-beetles, some of the mush- 



no INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

room-beetles, flat bark-beetles, and the like, with which they 
form a large and distinct section of Coleopterous insects. The 
following are the most striking peculiarities of the family to which 
the blistering-beetles belong. The head is broad and nearly heart- 
shaped, and it is joined to the thorax by a narrow neck. The 
antennae are rather long and tapering, sometimes knotted in the 
middle, particularly in the males. The thorax varies in form, but 
is generally much narrower than the wing-covers. The latter are 
soft and flexible, more or less bent down at the sides of the body, 
usually long and narrow, sometimes short and overlapping on 
their inner edges. The legs are long and slender ; the soles of 
the feet are not broad, and are not cushioned beneath ; and the 
claws are split to the bottom, or double, so that there appear to be 
four claws to each foot. The body is quite soft, and when 
handlsd, a yellowish fluid, of a disagreeable smell, comes out of the 
joints. These beetles are timid insects, and when alarmed they 
draw up their legs and feign themselves dead. Nearly all of them 
have the power of raising blisters when applied to the skin, and 
they retain it even when dead and perfectly dry. It is chiefly 
this property that renders them valuable to physicians. Four of 
our native Cantharides have been thus successfully employed, and 
are found to be as powerful in their effects as the imported spe- 
cies. For further particulars relative to their use, the reader is 
referred to my account of them published in 1824, in the first 
volume of " The Boston Journal of Philosophy, and the Arts," 
and in the thirteenth volume of " The New England Medical and 
Surgical Journal." 

Occasionally potato-vines are very much infested by two or 
three kinds of Cantharides, swarms of which attack and destroy 
the leaves during midsummer. One of these kinds has thereby 
obtained the name of the potato-fly. It is the Cant'iaris viilata*^ 
or striped Cantharis. It is of a dull tawny yellow or light yel- 
lowish red color above, with two black spots on the head, and 
two black stripes on the thorax and on each of the wing-covers. 
The under-side of the body, the legs, and the antennae are black, 
and covered with a grayish down. Its length is from five to six 

* Lytta vittata, Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. Ill 

tenths of an inch. In this and the three following species the tho- 
rax is very much narrowed before, and the wing-covers are long 
and narrow, and cover the whole of the back. The striped Can- 
tharis is comparatively rare in New England ; but in the Middle 
States it often appears in great numbers, and does much mischief 
in potato-fields and gardens, eating up not only the leaves of the 
potato, but those of many other vegetables. The habits of this 
kind of Cantharis are similar to those of the following species. 

There is a large blistering-beetle which is very common on 
the virgin's bower (Clematis Virginiana) , a trailing plant, which 
grows wild in the fields, and is often cultivated for covering 
arbors. 1 have sometimes seen this plant completely stripped of 
its leaves by these insects, during the month of August. They 
are very shy, and when disturbed fall immediately from the leaves, 
and attempt to conceal themselves among the grass. They most 
commonly resort to the low branches of the Clematis, or those 
that trail upon the ground, and more rarely attack the upper parts 
of the vine. They also eat the leaves of various kinds of Ranun- 
culus or buttercups, and, in the Middle and Southern States, those 
of Clematis viorna and crispa. This beetle is the Cantharis mar- 
ginata of Olivier, or margined Cantharis. It measures six or seven 
tenths of an inch in length. Its head and thorax are thickly cov- 
ered with short gray down, and have a black spot on the upper side 
of each ; the wing-covers are black, with a very narrow gray edg- 
ing ; and the under-side of the body and the legs are also gray. 

The most destructive kind of Cantharis, found in Massachu- 
setts, is of a more slender form than the preceding, and measures 
only from five and a half to six tenths of an inch in length. Its 
antennae and feet are black, and all the rest of its body is ashen 
gray, being thickly covered with a very short down of that color. 
Hence it is called Cantharis cinerea*, or the ash-colored Can- 
tharis. When the insect is rubbed, the ash-colored substance 
comes oft', leaving the surface black. It begins to appear in gar- 
dens about the twentieth of June, and is very fond of the leaves of 
the English bean, which it sometimes entirely destroys. It is 
also occasionally found in considerable numbers on potato-vines ; 

* Lytta cinerea, Fabricius. 



112 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it has repeatedly appeared in 
great profusion upon hedges of the honey-locust, which have been 
entirely stripped of foliage by these voracious insects. They are 
also found on the wild indigo-weed. In the night, and in rainy 
weather, they descend from the plants, and burrow in the ground, 
or under leaves and tufts of grass. Thither also they retire for 
shelter during the heat of the day, being most actively engaged in 
eating in the morning and evening. About the first of August 
they go into the ground and lay their eggs, and these are hatched 
in the course of one month. The larvae are slender, somewhat 
flattened grubs, of a yellowish color, banded with black, with a 
small reddish head, and six legs. These grubs are very active in 
their motions, and appear to live upon fine roots in the ground ; 
but I have not been able to keep them till they arrived at matu- 
rity, and therefore know nothing further of their history. 

About the middle of August, and during the rest of this and the 
following month, a jet-black Cantharis may be seen on potato- 
vines, and also on the blossoms and leaves of various kinds of 
golden-rod, particularly ihe tall golden-rod (SoHdago altissima), 
which seems to be its favorite food. In some places it is as plen- 
tiful in potato-fields as the striped and the margined Cantharis, 
and by its serious ravages has often excited attention. These 
three kinds, in fact, are often confounded under the common 
name of potato-flies ; and it is still more remarkable, that they are 
collected for medical use, and are sold in our shops by the name 
of Cantharis vittata^ without a suspicion of their being distinct 
from each other. The black Cantharis, or Cantharis atrataj^ is 
totally black, without bands or spots, and measures from four 
tenths to half of an inch in length. I have repeatedly taken these 
insects, in considerable quantities, by brushing or shaking them 
from the potato-vines into a broad tin pan, from which they were 
emptied into a covered pail containing a little water in it, which, 
by wetting their wings, prevented their flying out when the pail 
was uncovered. The same method may be employed for taking 
the other kinds of Cantharides, when they become troublesome 
and destructive from their numbers ; or they may be caught by 
gently sweeping the plants they frequent with a deep muslin bag- 

i Lytta atrata, Fabricius. 



COLEOPTERA. 113 

net. They should be killed by throwing them into scalding 
water, for one or two minutes, after which they may be spread 
out on sheets of paper to dry, and may be made profitable by sell- 
ing them to the apothecaries for medical use. 

There are some bhstering-beetles, belonging to another genus, 
which seem deserving of a passing notice, not on account of any 
great injury committed by them, but because they can be used in 
medicine like the foregoing, and are considered by some natural- 
ists as forming one of the links connecting the orders Coleoptera 
and Orthoptera together. These insects belong to the genus 
Meloe, so named, it is supposed, because they are of a black, or 
deep blue-black color. They are called oil-beetles, in England, 
on account of the yellowish liquid which oozes from their joints 
in large drops when they are handled. Their head is large, heart- 
shaped, and bent down, as in the other blistering-beetles. Their 
thorax is narrowed behind, and very small in proportion to the 
rest of the body. The latter is egg-shaped, pointed behind, and 
so enormously large, that it drags on the ground when the beetle 
attempts to walk. The wings are wanting, and of course these 
insects are unable to fly, altliough they have a pair of very short 
oval wing-covers, which overlap on their inner edges, and do not 
cover more than one third of the abdomen. These beetles eat 
the leaves of various kinds of buttercups. 

Our common species is the Meloe avgusticollis of Say, or 
narrow-necked oil-beetle. It is of a dark indigo-blue color ; the 
thorax is very narrow, and the antennae of the male are curiously 
twisted and knotted in the middle. It measures from eight tenths 
of an inch to one inch in length. It is very common on butter- 
cups in the autumn, and I have also found it eating the leaves of 
potato-vines. 

The foregoing insects are but a small number of those, belong- 
ing to the order Coleoptera, which are injurious to vegetation. 
Those only have been selected that are the most remarkable for 
their ravages, or would best serve to illustrate the families and 
genera to which they belong. The orders Orthoptera, Hemip- 
tera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, remain to be 
treated in the same way, in carrying out the plan upon which this 
treatise has been begun, and to which it is Hmited, 
15 



114 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



ORTHOPTERA. 

Earwigs. Cockroaches. — Mantes, or Soothsavers. — Walking-leaves. 
Walking-sticks, OR Spectres. — Mole-Cricket. Field Crickets. Climb- 
ing Cricket. Cucumber Skippers. Awl-bearer, or Wingless-Cricket. 
Grasshoppers. Katy-did. Locusts. 

The destructive insects popularly known in this country by the 
name of grasshoppers, but which, in our version of the Bible, 
and in other works in the English language, are called locusts, 
have, from a period of very high antiquity, attracted the attention 
of mankind by their extensive and lamentable ravages. It should 
here be remarked, that in America the name of locust is very 
improperly given to the Cicada of the ancients, or the harvest-fly 
of English writers, some kinds of which will be the subject of 
future remark in this essay. The name of locust will here be 
restricted to certain kinds of grasshoppers ; while the popularly 
named locust, which, according to common belief, appears only 
once in seventeen years, must drop this name and take the more 
correct one of Cicada or harvest-fly. The very frequent mis- 
application of names, by persons unacquainted with natural his- 
tory, is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of science, 
and shows how necessary it is that things should be called by 
their right names, if the observations communicated respecting 
them are to be of any service. Every intelligent farmer is capa- 
ble of becoming a good observer, and of making valuable dis- 
coveries in natural history ; but if he be ignorant of the proper 
names of the objects examined, or if he give to them names, 
which previously have been applied by other persons to entirely 
different objects, he will fail to make the result of his observa- 
tions intelligible and useful to the community. 

The insects which I here call locusts, together with other 
grasshoppers, earwigs, crickets, spectres or walking-sticks, and 
walking-leaves, soothsayers, cockroaches, &c., belong to an order 
called Orthoptera, literally straight-wings ; for their wings, 
when not in use, are folded lengthwise in narrow plaits like a fan, 
and are laid straight along the top or sides of the back. They 



ORTHOPTERA. 115 

are also covered by a pair of thicker wing-like members, which, 
in the locusts and grasshoppers, are long and narrow, and lie 
lengthwise on the sides of the body, sloping outwards on each 
side like the roof of a house ; in the cockroaches, these upper 
wings or wing-covers, are broader, almost oval, and lie horizon- 
tally on the top of the back, overlapping on their inner edges ; 
and in the crickets, the wing-covers, when closed, are placed like 
those of cockroaches, but have a narrow outer border, which is 
folded perpendicularly downwards so as to cover the sides of the 
body also. 

All the Orthopterous insects are provided with transversely 
movable jaws, more or less like those of beetles, but they do not 
undergo a complete transformation in coming to maturity. The 
young, in fact, often present a close resemblance to the adult in- 
sects in form, and differ from them chiefly in wanting wings. 
They move about and feed precisely like their parents, but change 
their skins repeatedly before they come to their full size. The 
second stage in the progress of the Orthopterous insects to ma- 
turity, is not, like that of beetles, a state of inactivity and rest, in 
which the insect loses the grub-like or larva form which it had 
when hatched from the egg, and becomes a pupa or chrysalis, 
more nearly resembling the form of a beetle, but soft, whitish, 
and with its undeveloped wings and limbs incased in a thin trans- 
parent skin which impedes all motion. On the contrary, the Or- 
thoptera, in the pupa state, do not differ from the young and 
from the old insects, except in having the rudiments of wings and 
wing-covers projecting, like little scales, from the back near the 
thorax. These pupae are active and voracious, and increase 
greatly in size, which is not the case with the insects that are sub- 
ject to a complete transformation, for such never eat or grow in 
the pupa state. When fully grown, they cast off their skins for 
the sixth or last time, and then appear in the adult or perfect state, 
fully provided with all their members, with the exception of a few 
kinds which remain wingless throughout their whole lives. The 
slight changes to which the Orthoptera are subject, consist of 
nothing more than a successive series of moultings, during which 
their wings are gradually developed. These changes may re- 
ceive the name of imperfect or incomplete transformation, in con- 



116 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

tradistinction to the far greater changes exhibited by those insects 
which pass through a complete transformation in their progress to 
maturity. 

Cockroaches are general feeders, and nothing comes amiss to 
them, whether of vegetable or animal nature ; the Mantes or 
soothsayers are predaceous and carnivorous, devouring weaker 
insects, and even those of their own kind occasionally ; but by 
far the greater part of the Orthopterous insects subsist on vegeta- 
ble food, grass, flowers, fruits, the leaves, and even the bark of 
trees : whence it follows, in connexion with their considerable 
size, their great voracity, and the immense troops or swarms in 
which they too often appear, that they are capable of doing great 
injury to vegetation. 

The Orthoptera may be divided into four large groups : 

1. Runners (Orthoptera cursoria*), including earwigs and 
cockroaches, with all the legs fitted for rapid motion ; 

2. Graspers (Orthoptera raptoria), such as the Mantes, or 
soothsayers, with the shanks of the fore-legs capable of being 
doubled upon the under-side of the thigh, which, moreover, is 
armed with teeth, and thus forms an instrument for seizing and 
holding their prey ; 

3. Walkers (Orthoptera ambulatoria) , like the spectres or 
walking-sticks, having weak and slender legs, which do not admit 
of rapid motion ; and 

4. Jumpers (Orthoptera saltatoria^, such as crickets, grass- 
hoppers, and locusts, in which the thighs of the hind-legs are 
much larger than the others, and are filled and moved with power- 
ful muscles, which enable these insects to leap with facility. 

I. RUNNERS. [Orlhopiera Cursoria.) 

In English works on gardening, earwigs are reckoned among 
obnoxious insects, various remedies are suggested to banish them 
from the garden, and even traps and other devices are described 
for capturing and destroying them. These little insects have got 
a bad name, whether deservedly or not, has never appeared ; and, 

* These are the four divisions proposed by Mr. Westwood in his " Introduc- 
tion," who, however, applies to them their Latin names only. 



ORTHOPTERA. 117 

since ihey already lie under reproach, they seem to have kept up 
their claim to it, by turning pilferers to such an extent, that it has 
become necessary to set a vigilant watch on their proceedings. 
They are particularly fond of taking up their abode in melon and 
hot-bed frames, where they find a congenial warmth, and an abun- 
dance of tender and juicy food ; they are accused, and not 
without reason, of getting the first taste of ripe fruit ; they seem 
also to be quite as well pleased with beautiful, rare, and odorous 
flowers, as the most enthusiastic florist, but show their admiration 
by making a meal of them. They have a rather long and some- 
what flattened body, which is armed at the hinder end with a pair 
of slender sharp-pointed blades, opening and shutting horizontally 
like scissors, or like a pair of nippers, which suggested the name 
of Forjicula, literally little nippers, applied to them by scientific 
writers. Although no well authenticated instances are on record 
of their entering the human ear, yet, during the day-time, they 
creep into all kinds of crevices for the sake of concealment, and 
come out to feed chiefly by night. They seem to be as timid as 
hares, and when disturbed run into the nearest hole, satisfied, like 
the quadrupeds above named, if they can get their heads under 
cover, and thus exclude the sight of danger, even when their 
bodies are fully exposed. Hence, it often happens that they will 
be found with their heads buried in the bottom of flowers, their 
forked tails sticking up among the stamens and pistils, so that they 
might escape the notice of any one but a botanist or an entomolo- 
gist. They are very injurious to flowers, eating holes in the 
blossoms, and otherwise disfiguring them, particularly the dahlia ; 
and Mouffet* says that "ox-hoofs, hog's hoofs, or old cast things 
are used as traps for them by the English women, who hate them 
exceedingly, because of clove-gilliflowers that they eat and spoyl." 
It is common with English gardeners to hang up, among the flow- 
ers and fruit-trees subject to their attacks, pieces of hollow reeds, 
lobster claws, and the like, which offer enticing places of re- 
treat for these insects on the approach of daylight, and by means 
thereof great numbers of them are obtained in the morning. The 
little creeping animal, with numerous legs, commonly, but errone- 

* Quoted from Westwood's " Introduction," 



118 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ously called earwig in America, is not an insect ; but of the true 
earwig we have several species, though they are by no means 
common, and certainly never appear in such numbers as to prove 
seriously injurious to vegetation. Nevertheless, it seemed well to 
give to this kind of insect a passing notice in its proper place 
among the Orthoptera, were it only for its notoriety in other 
countries. 

Of cockroaches (Blatta) we have also several kinds ; those which 
are indigenous I believe are found exclusively in woods, under stones 
and leaves, while the others, and particularly the Oriental cock- 
roach (BZa^f a orientalis), which is supposed to have originated in 
Asia, whence it has spread to Europe, and thence to America, and 
has multiplied and become established in most of our maritime 
commercial towns, are domestic species, and are found in houses, 
under kitchen hearths, about ovens, and in dark and warm closets, 
whence they issue at night, and prowl about in search of food. 
But, as these disgusting and ill-smelling insects confine themselves 
to our dwellings, and do not visit our gardens and fields, they will 
require no further remarks than the mention of a method which 
has sometimes been found useful in destroying them. Mix to- 
gether a table-spoon full of red-lead and of Indian meal with mo- 
lasses enough to make a thick batter, and place the mixture at 
night on a plate or piece of board in the closets or on the hearths 
frequented by the cockroaches. They will eat it and become 
poisoned thereby. The dose is to be repeated for several nights 
in succession. 

II. GRASPERS. {Orthoptera raptoria.) 

These, which consist of the Mantes^ called praying-mantes and 
soothsayers, from their singular attitudes and motions, and camel- 
crickets, from the great length of the neck, are chiefly tropical 
insects, though some of them are occasionally found in this 
country. Moreover, they are exclusively predaceous insects, 
seizing, with their singular fore-legs, caterpillars, and other weaker 
insects which they devour. They are, therefore, to be enumerated 
among the insects that are beneficial to mankind, by keeping in 
check those that subsist on vegetable food. 



ORTHOPTERA. 119 

III. WALKERS. (Orthoptera ambulatoria.) 

To this division belong various insects, mostly found in warm 
climates, and displaying the most extraordinary forms. Some of 
them are furnished with wings, which, by their shape, and the 
branching veins with which they are covered, exactly represent 
leaves, either green, or dry and withered ; such are the walking- 
leaves, as they are called, (Phyllium pulchrifolium , sicdfolium, 
&c.). Others are wingless, of a long and cylindrical shape, re- 
sembling a stick with the bark on it, while the slender legs, stand- 
ing out on each side, give to these insects almost precisely the 
appearance of a little branching twig, whence is derived the name 
of walking-sticks, generally applied to them. The South Amer- 
ican Bacteria arumatia^ rubispinosa, and phyllina^ and two spe- 
cies o( Diapheromera "? described and figured in Say's "American 
Entomology," under the names of Spectrum femoratum and bi- 
vittatum, are of the latter description. These insects are very 
sluggish and inactive, are found among trees and bushes, on 
which they often remain motionless for a long time, or walk slowly 
over the leaves and young shoots, which are their appropriate food. 
The American species are not so numerous, and have not 
proved so injurious as particularly to attract attention. 

IV. JUMPERS. (Orthoptera sanatoria.) 

These are by far the most abundant and prolific, and the most 
destructive of the Orthopterous insects. They were all included 
by Linnaeus in his great genus Gryllus, in separate divisions, how- 
ever, three of which correspond to the families Jlchetadce,* 
Grylliac^^f and Locustiadce,^ in my "Catalogue of the Insects 
of Massachusetts," and may retain the synonymous English 
names of Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Locusts. These three 
famihes may thus be distinguished from each other. 

1. Crickets (Achetad^) ; with the wing-covers horizontal, and 
furnished with a narrow, deflexed outer border ; antennae long and 

* Gryllus Acheta, Linnseus. t Gryllus Tettigonia, L. 

t Gryllus Locusta, L. 



120 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

tapering ; feet with not more than three joints ; two tapering, 
downy bristles at the end of the body, between which, in most of 
the females, is a long spear-pointed piercer. 

2. Grasshoppers (Gryllid^) ; with the wing-covers sloping 
downwards at the sides of the body, or roofed, and not bordered ; 
antennae long and tapering ; feet with four joints ; end of the 
body, in the females, with a projecting sword or sabre-shaped 
piercer. 

3. Locusts (LocusTAD^) ; with the wing-covers roofed, and 
not bordered ; antennae rather short, and in general not tapering at 
the end : feet with only three joints ; female without a projecting 
piercer. 

1. Crickets. (Achetada.) 

There may sometimes be seen in moist and soft ground, par- 
ticularly around ponds, little ridges or hills of loose fresh earth, 
smaller than those which are formed by moles. They cover little 
burrows, that usually terminate beneath a stone or clod of turf. 
These burrows are made and inhabited by mole-crickets, which 
are among the most extraordinary of the cricket kind. The 
common mole-cricket of this country is, when fully grown, about 
one inch and a quarter in length, of a light bay or fawn color, and 
covered with a very short and velvet-like down. The wing- 
covers are not half the length of the abdomen, and the wings are 
also short, their tips, when folded, extending only about one eighth 
of an inch beyond the wing-covers. The fore-legs are admirably 
adapted for digging, being very short, broad, and strong ; and the 
shanks, which are excessively broad, flat, and three-sided, have 
the lower side divided by deep notches into four finger-like pro- 
jections, that give to this part very much the appearance and the 
power of the hand of a mole. From this similarity in structure, 
and from its burrowing habits, this insect receives its scientific 
name of Gryllotalpa, derived from Gryllus, the ancient name of 
the cricket, and Talpa, a mole ; and our common species has the 
additional name of hrevipennis,* or short-winged, to distinguish it 
from the European species, which has much longer wings. Mole- 

* Serville. " Orthopleres," p. 308. 



ORTHOPTERA. 121 

crickets avoid the light of day, and are active chiefly during the 
night. They Hve on the tender roots of plants, and in Europe, 
vi^here they infest moist gardens and meadows, they often do great 
injury by burrowing under the turf, and cutting off the roots of 
the grass, and by undermining and destroying, in this way, some- 
times whole beds of cabbages, beans, and flowers. In the West 
Indies, extensive ravages have been committed in the plantations 
of the sugar-cane, by another species, Gryllotalpa didactyla, which 
has only two finger-like projections on the shin. The mole- 
cricket of Europe lays from two to three hundred eggs, and the 
young do not come to maturity till the third year ; circumstances 
both contributing greatly to increase the ravages of these insects. 
It is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is extended, 
destructive insects multiply, and their depredations become more 
serious. We may, therefore, in process of time, find mole- 
crickets in this country quite as much a pest as they are in Eu- 
rope, although their depredations have hitherto been limited to so 
small an extent as not to have attracted much notice. Should 
it hereafter become necessary to employ means for checking 
them, poisoning might be tried, such as placing, in the vicinity of 
their burrows, grated carrots or potatoes mixed with arsenic. It 
is well known that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects, and 
that they are very sagacious in rooting them out of the ground. 
They might, therefore, be employed with advantage to destroy 
these and other noxious insects, if other means should fail. 

We have no house-crickets in America ; our species inhabit 
gardens and fields, and enter our houses only by accident. 
Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal and solitary insects, 
concealingthemselves by day, and coming from their retreats to 
seek thej^^nd and their mates by night. There are some spe- 
cies, ho^^^, which differ greatly from the others in their social 
habits. These are not unfrequently seen during the daytime in 
great numbers in paths, and by the road-side ; but the other kinds 
rarely expose themselves to the light of day, and their music is 
heard only at night. With crickets, as with grasshoppers, lo- 
custs, and harvest-flies, the males only are musical ; for the fe- 
males are not provided with the instruments from which the sounds 
emitted by these different insects are produced. In the male 
16 



122 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

cricket these make a part of the wing-covers, the horizontal and 
overlapping portion of which, near the thorax, is convex, and 
marked with large, strong, and irregularly curved veins. When 
the cricket shrills (we cannot say sings, for he has no vocal or- 
gans), he raises the wing-covers a httle, and shuffles them together 
lengthwise, so that the projecting veins of one are made to grate 
against those of the other. The English name cricket, and the 
French cri-cri, are evidently derived from the creaking sounds of 
these insects. Mr. White, of Selborne, says that " the shrilling 
of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously 
delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer 
ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous " ; sen- 
timents in which few persons, if any, in America will participate ; 
for with us the creaking of crickets does not begin till summer is 
gone, and the continued and monotonous sounds, which they keep 
up during the whole night, so long as autumn lasts, are both weari- 
some and sad. Where crickets abound, they do great injury to 
vegetation, eating the most tender parts of plants, and even de- 
vouring fruits and roots, whenever they can get them. Melons, 
squashes, and even potatoes are often eaten by them, and the quan- 
tity of grass that they destroy must be great, from the immense 
numbers of these insects which are sometimes seen in our meadows 
and fields. They may be poisoned in the same way as mole- 
crickets. Crickets are not entirely confined to a vegetable diet ; 
they devour other insects whenever they meet with and can over- 
power them. They deposit their eggs, which are numerous, in 
the ground, making holes for their reception with their long, spear- 
pointed piercers. The eggs are laid in the autumn, and do not 
appear to be hatched till the ensuing summer. The old insects, 
for the most part, die on the approach of cold weatL^Bbut a few 
survive the winter, by sheltering themselves under ^Wres, or in 
holes secure from the access of water. 

The scientific name of the genus that includes the cricket is 
Jlcheta^ and our common species is the Jicheta abbreviata, so 
named from the shortness of its wings, which do not extend 
beyond the wing-covers. It is about three quarters of an inch in 
length, of a black color, with a brownish tinge at the base of the 
wing-covers, and a pale line on each side above the deflexed bor- 



ORTHOPTERA. 123 

der. The pale line is most distinct in the female, and is often- 
times entirely wanting in the male. 

We have another species with very short or abortive wings ; it is 
entirely of a black color, and measures six tenths of an inch in 
length from the head to the end of the body. It may be called 
Acheta nigra, the black cricket. 

A third species, differing from these two in being entirely 
destitute of wings, and in having the wing-covers proportionally 
much shorter, and the last joint of the feelers (palpi) almost 
twice the length of the preceding joint, is furthermore dis- 
tinguished from them by its greatly inferior size, and its dif- 
ferent coloring. It measures from three to above four tenths 
of an inch in length, and varies in color from dusky brown to 
rusty black, the wing-covers and hindmost thighs being always 
somewhat lighter. In the brownish colored varieties three longi- 
tudinal black lines are distinctly visible on the top of the head, 
and a black line on each side of the thorax, which is continued 
along the sides of the wing-covers to their tips. This black line 
on the wing-covers is never wanting, even in the darkest varieties. 
The hindmost thighs have, on the outside, three rows of short 
oblique black lines, presenting somewhat of a twilled appearance. 
This is one of the social species, which, associated together in 
great swarms, and feeding in common, frequent our meadows and 
road-sides, and, so far from avoiding the light of day, seem to be 
quite as fond of it as others are of darkness. It may be called 
Acheta vittata*, the striped cricket. 

These kinds of crickets live upon the ground, and among the 
grass and low herbage ; but there is another kind which inhabits 
the stems and branches of shrubs and trees, concealing itself during 
the dayUM^among the leaves, or in the flowers of these plants. 
Some iS^la grape-vines, which were trained against one side of 
my house, were much resorted to by these delicate and noisy little 
crickets. The males begin to be heard about the middle of Au- 
gust, and do not leave us until after the middle of September. 
Their shrilling is excessively loud, and is produced, like that of 
other crickets, by the rubbing of one wing-cover against the other ; 

* It belongs to M. Serville's new genus JVemobius. 



124 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

but they generally raise their wing-covers much higher than other 
crickets do while they are playing. These wing-covers, in the 
males, are also very large, and as long as the wings ; they are ex- 
ceedingly thin, and perfectly transparent, and have the horizontal 
portion divided into four unequal parts by three oblique raised 
lines, two of which are parallel and form an angle with the anterior 
line. The antennae and legs are both very long and slender, the 
hinder thighs being much smaller in proportion than those of other 
crickets, and the hindmost feet have four instead of three joints. 
The two bristle-formed appendages at the end of the body are as 
long as the piercer, and the latter is only about half the length of 
the body, while, in the ground-crickets, the piercer is usually 
as long as the body or longer. These insects have, therefore, 
been separated from the other crickets under the generical name 
of CEcanthus, a word which means inhabiting flowers. They 
may be called climbing-crickets, from their habit of mounting upon 
plants and dwelling among the leaves and flowers. According to 
M. Salvi* the female makes several perforations in the tender 
stems of plants, and in each perforation thrusts two eggs quite to 
the pith. The eggs are hatched about midsummer, and the young 
immediately issue from their nests and conceal themselves among 
the thickest foliage of the plant. When arrived at maturity the 
males begin their nocturnal serenade at the approach of twilight, 
and continue it, with little or no intermission till the dawn of day. 
Should one of these little musicians get admission to the chamber, 
his incessant and loud shrilling will effectually banish sleep. Of 
three species which inhabit the United States, one only is found 
in Massachusetts. It is the CEcanthus niveus, or white climbing- 
cricket. The male is ivory-white, with the upper side of the first 
joint of the antennas, and the head between the eyes, ^Bd ochre- 
yellow color ; there is a minute black dot on the unc^Psides of 
the first and second joints of the antennae ; and, in some individu- 
als, the extremities of the feet, and the under-sides of the hind- 
most thighs, are ochre-yellow. The body is about half an inch 
long, exclusive of the wing-covers. The female is usually rather 
longer, but the wing-covers are much narrower than those of the 



* Memorie intorno le Locuste grillajole. 8vo. Verona : 1750. 



ORTHOPTERA. 125 

male, and there is a great diversity of coloring in this sex ; the 
body being sometimes almost white, or pale greenish yellow, or 
dusky, and blackish beneath. There are three dusky stripes on 
the head and thorax, and the legs, antennae, and piercer are more 
or less dusky or blackish. The wing-covers and wings are 
yellowish white, sometimes with a tinge of green, and the wings 
are rather longer than the covers. 

In Europe there are found, in ant-hills, little jumping insects 
about three twentieths of an inch in length, of a brownish color, 
with an egg-shaped body, entirely destitute of wings and wing- 
covers. The head is very small, and nearly concealed under the 
forepart of the body ; the hindmost thighs are remarkably thick ; 
and the female has a very short piercer, not exceeding the terminal 
appendages in length. These insects belong to the genus Myr- 
mecophila. Several years ago I observed that cucumber vines 
were much infested by some minute jumping insects, rather less 
than one tenth of an inch long, of a broad oval shape, and black 
color, without wing-covers or wings, but furnished with short 
thick hinder thighs. They injured the vines very much by eating 
holes into or puncturing the leaves, and were expelled by dusting 
the plants with flour of sulphur. These cucumber-skippers were 
so soft and tender, and withal so agile, that it was difficult to catch 
without crushing them. Consequently I was unable to examine 
them thoroughly, and failed to preserve specimens of them. It 
is possible that they may come near to the genus Myrmecophila, 
which was unknown to me at the time ; and since then these mi- 
nute insects have escaped my observation. They were very 
different from the little flea-beetles (Haltica cucumeris or pu- 
bescens), also found on cucumber-vines, which have already been 
noticed armong the Coleopterous insects.* 

2. Grasshoppers. [Gryllidcz.) 

Grasshoppers, properly so called, as before stated, are those 
jumping orthopterous insects which have four joints to all their 
feet, long bristle-formed antennae, and in which the females are 
provided with a piercer, flattened at the sides, and somewhat re- 

* See p. 103. 



126 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

sembling a sword or cimeter in shape. The wing-covers slope 
downwards at the sides of the body, and overlap only a little on 
the top of the back near the thorax. This overlapping portion, 
which forms a long triangle, is traversed, in the males, by strong 
projecting veins, between which, in many of them, are mem- 
branous spaces as transparent as glass. The sounds emitted by 
the males, and varying according to the species, are produced by 
the friction of these overlapping portions together. 

In Massachusetts there is one kind of grasshopper, which forms 
a remarkable exception to the other native insects of this family ; 
and, as it does not seem to have been named or described by any 
author, although by no means an uncommon insect, it may receive 
a passing notice here. It is found only under stones and rubbish 
in woods, has a short thick body, and remarkably stout hind 
thighs, like a cricket, but is entirely destitute of wing-covers and 
wings, even when arrived at maturity. It probably belongs to 
M. Serville's genus Raphidophora, the awl-bearer, only one spe- 
cies of which has been described, and that one is a native of Java. 
I propose, therefore, to call this species Raphidophora maculata*, 
the spotted awl-bearer. Its body is of a pale yellowish brown 
color, darker on the back, which is covered with little light- 
colored spots, and the outside of the hindmost thighs is marked 
with numerous short oblique lines, disposed in parallel rows, like 
those on the thighs of Acheta vittata. It varies in length from 
one half to more than three quarters of an inch, exclusive of the 
piercer and legs. The body is smooth and shining, and the 
back is arched. 

Most grasshoppers are of a green color, and are furnished with 
wings and wing-covers, the latter frequently resembling the leaves 
of trees, upon which, indeed, many of these insects pass the 
greater part of their lives. Their leaf-like form and green color 
evidently seem to have been designed for the better concealment 
of these insects. They commit their eggs to the earth, dropping 
them into holes made for this purpose by their piercers. They 
lay a large number of eggs at a time, and cover them with a kind 
of varnish, which, when dry, forms a thin film that completely 

* Gryllus mactdatus, Harris. Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts. 



ORTHOPTERA. 127 

encloses them. Their eggs are laid in the autumn, and usually 
are not hatched till the following spring. They are nocturnal in- 
sects, or at least more active by night than by day. When taken 
between the fingers, they emit from their mouths a considerable 
quantity of dark-colored fluid, as do also the locusts or diurnal 
grasshoppers. They devour the leaves of trees, and of other 
plants, and lead a solitary life, or at least do not associate and mi- 
grate from place to place in great swarms, hke some of the crickets 
and the locusts. 

Some of these grasshoppers have the front of the head obtuse, 
and others have it conical, or prolonged to a point between the 
antennae. Among the former is the insect, which, from its pe- 
culiar note, is called the katy-did. Its body is of a pale green 
color, the wing-covers and wings being somewhat darker. Its 
thorax is rough like shagreen, and has somewhat the form of a 
saddle, being curved downwards on each side, and rounded and 
slightly elevated behind, and is marked by two slightly transverse 
furrows. The wings are rather shorter than the wing-covers, and 
the latter are very large, oval, and concave, and enclose the body 
within their concavity, meeting at the edges above and below, 
somewhat like the two sides or valves of a pea-pod. The veins 
are large, very distinct, and netted like those of some leaves, and 
there is one vein of larger size running along the middle of each 
wing-cover, and simulating the midrib of a leaf. The musical 
organs of the male consists of a pair of taborets. They are 
formed by a thin and transparent membrane stretched in a strong 
half-oval frame in the triangular overlapping portion of each wing- 
cover. During the daytime these insects are silent, and conceal 
themselves among the leaves of trees ; but at night, they quit 
their lurking places, and the joyous males begin the tell-tale call 
with which they enliven their silent mates. This proceeds from 
the friction of the taboret frames against each other when the 
wing-covers are opened and shut, and consists of two or three dis- 
tinct notes almost exactly resembling articulated sounds, and cor- 
responding with the number of times that the wing-covers are 
opened and shut ; and the notes are repeated, at intervals of a 
few minutes, for hours together. The mechanism of the taborets, 
and the concavity of the wing-covers, reverberate and increase the 



128 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

sound to such a degree, that it may be heard, in the stillness of 
the night, at the distance of a quarter of a mile. At the approach 
of twilight the katy-did mounts to the upper branches of the tree 
in which he lives, and, as soon as the shades of evening prevail, 
begins his noisy babble, while rival notes issue from the neigh- 
bouring trees, and the groves resound with the call of " katy-did, 
she-did," the live-long night. Of this insect I have met with no 
scientific description except my own, which was published in 
1831 in the eighth volume of the " Encyclopaedia Americana," 
page 42. It is the Platyphyllum* concavum\^ and measures, 
from the head to the end of the wing-covers, rather more than 
one inch and a half, the body alone being one inch in length. 
The piercer is broad, laterally compressed, and curved like a 
cimeter ; and there are, in both sexes, two little thorn-like pro- 
jections from the middle of the breast between the fore-legs. It 
is found in the perfect state during the months of September and 
October. 

We have another broad-winged green grasshopper, differing 
from the katy-did, in having the wing-covers narrower, flat 
and not concave, and shorter than the wings, the thorax 
smooth, flat above, and abruptly bent downwards at a right angle 
on each side, and the breast without any projecting spines in the 
middle. The piercer has the same form as that of the katy-did. 
The musical organ of the left wing-cover, which is the uppermost, 
is not transparent, but is green and opake, and is traversed by a 
strong curved vein ; that of the right wing-cover is semi-transparent 
in the middle. This insect is the Phylloptera oblongifoliaX-, or 
oblong leaf-winged grasshopper. Its body measures about an 
inch in length, and from the head to the tips of the wings, from 
an inch and three quarters to three inches. It is found in its per- 
fect state, during the months of September and October, upon 
trees, and, when it flies, makes a whizzing noise somewhat hke 
that of a weaver's shuttle. The notes of the male, though grat- 
ing, are comparatively feeble. 

* Platyphyllum means broad-wing, 
t Can this be the Locnsla perspicillata of Fabricius ? 

X Locusta oblongifolia of De Geer, a different species from the laurifolia of 
Linnseus, witli which it has been confounded by many naturalists. 



ORTHOPTERA. 129 

A third species, also of a green color, with still narrower 
wing-covers, which are of almost equal width from one end to 
the other, but are rounded at the tips, and are shorter than the 
wings, has the head, thorax, musical organs, and breast, like 
those of the preceding species, but the piercer is much short- 
er, and very much more crooked, being bent vertically upwards 
from near its base. The male has a long tapering projection 
from the under-side of the extremity of the body, curved 
upwards like the piercer of the female. This grasshopper be- 
longs to the genus Phaneroptera, so named, probably, because the 
wings are visible beyond the tips of the wing-covers ; and, as it 
does not appear to have been described before, I propose to call 
it angustifolia,* the narrow-leaved. It measures from the forehead 
to the end of the abdomen about three quarters of an inch, and to 
the tips of the wings from an inch and a half to an inch and three 
quarters. Its habits appear to be the same as those of the oblongi- 
folia. It comes to maturity sometime in the latter part of August 
or the beginning of September. 

From the middle till the end of summer, the grass in our 
meadows and moist fields is filled with myriads of little grass- 
hoppers, of different ages, and of a light green color, with a 
brown stripe on the top of the head, extending to the tip of 
the little smooth and blunt projection between the antennae, 
and a broader brown stripe bounded on each side by deeper 
brown on the top of the thorax. The antennae, knees, and 
shanks are green, faintly tinted with brown, and the feet are 
dusky. When come to maturity, they measure three quarters of 
an inch or more, from the forehead to the end of the body, or one 
inch to the ends of the wing-covers. The latter are abruptly nar- 
rowed in the middle, and taper thence to the tip, which, however, 
is rounded and extends as far back as the wings. The color of 
the wing-covers is green, but they are faintly tinged with brown 
on the overlapping portion, and have the delicacy and semi- 
transparency of the skin of an onion. The shrilling organs in the 

* I formerly mistook this insect for the Locusta curvicauila of De Geer, wiiich 
is found in the Middle and Southern States, but not in Massachusetts, is a lartrer 
species, with wing-covers broadest in the middle, and different oro-ans in the male 
and belongs to the genus Phylloptera. 
17 



130 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

males consist of a transparent glassy spot, bounded and traversed 
by strong veins, in the middle of the overlapping portion of each 
wing-cover, which part is proportionally much larger and longer 
than in the other grasshoppers ; but the transparent spot is rather 
smaller on the left than on the right wing-cover. The male 
is furthermore distinguished by having two small black spots or 
short dashes, one behind the other, on each wing-cover, on the 
outside of the transparent spot. The wings are green on their 
front margins, transparent, and reflecting a faint pink color behind. 
The piercer of the female is cimeter-shaped, being curved, and 
pointed at the end, and is about three tenths of an inch long. 
The hindmost thighs, in both sexes, are smooth and not spinous 
beneath ; there are two little spines in the middle of the breast ; 
and the antennae are very long and slender, and extend, when 
turned back, considerably beyond the end of the hind-legs. Dur- 
ing the evening, and even at other times in shady places, the males 
make a sharp clicking noise, somewhat like that produced by 
snapping the point of a pen against the thumb-nail, but much 
louder. This kind of grasshopper very much resembles the Lo- 
custa agilis of De Geer, which is found in Pennsylvania and the 
Southern States, but does not inhabit Massachusetts, and is dis- 
tinguished from our species by having the wings nearly one tenth 
of an inch longer than the wing-covers, the antennae excessively 
long (two inches or more), and the piercer not quite so much 
curved as in our species, besides other differences which it is un- 
necessary to record here. As our species does not appear to 
have been named, or described by any previous writer, I propose 
to call it Orchelimum vulgare, the common meadow-grasshopper, 
the generical name signifying literally, I dance in the meadow. 

With this species another one is also found, bearing a consider- 
able resemblance to it in color and form, but measuring only four 
or five tenths of an inch from the head to the end of the body, or 
from seven to eight tenths to the tips of the wings, which are a 
little longer than the wing-covers. The latter are narrow and 
taper to the end, which is rounded, but the overlapping portion is 
not so large as in the common species, and the male has not the 
two black spots on each wing-cover. The upper part of the ab- 
domen is brown, with the edges of the segments greenish yellow. 



ORTHOPTERA. 131 

and the piercer, which is nearly three tenths of an inch long, is 
brown and nearly straight. This little insect comes very near to 
Locusta fasciata of De Geer, who, however, makes no mention 
of the broad brown stripe on the head and thorax. I therefore 
presume that our species is not the same, and propose to call it 
Orchelimum gracHe, the slender meadow-grasshopper. M. Ser- 
ville, by whom this genus was instituted, has described three spe- 
cies, two of which are stated to be North American, and the 
remaining one is probably also from this country ; but his de- 
scriptions do not answer for either of our species. Both of these 
kinds of meadow-grasshoppers are eaten greedily by fowls of all 
kinds. 

One more grasshopper remains to be described. It is distin- 
guished from all the preceding species by having the head coni- 
cal, and extending to a blunt point between the eyes. It belongs 
to the genus Conocephalus, a word expressive of the conical form 
of the head, and, in my Catalogue of the Insects of Massachu- 
setts, bears the specific name of ensiger, the sword-bearer, from 
the long, straight, sword-shaped piercer of the female. It meas- 
ures an inch or more from the point of the head to the end of the 
body, and from one inch and three quarters to two inches, to the 
end of the wing-covers. It is pale green, with the head whitish, or 
only faintly tinted with green, and the legs and abdomen are pale 
brownish green. A little tooth projects downwards from the un- 
der side of the conical part of the head, which extends between 
the antennae, and immediately before this little tooth is a black 
line bent backwards on each side like the letter U. The hind- 
most thighs have five or six exceedingly minute spines on the 
inner ridge of the under-side. The shrilling organ of the male, on 
the left wing-cover, is green and opake, but that on the right 
has a space in the middle that is transparent like glass. The 
piercer of the female is above an inch long, very slightly bent 
near the body, and perfectly straight from thence to the tip, 
which ends in a point. The color of this grasshopper is very apt 
to change, after death, to a dirty brown. It comes very near to 
the dissimilis described by M. Serville, but appears to be a dif- 
ferent species.* 

* In the collection belonging to the Boston Society of Natural History, there is 



132 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

3. Locusts. (Locustadte.) 

The various insects included under the name of locusts nearly 
all agree in having their wing-covers rather long and narrow, and 
placed obliquely along the sides of the body, meeting, and even 
overlapping for a short distance, at their upper edges, which 
together form a ridge on the back like a sloping roof. Their an- 
tennae are much shorter than those of most grasshoppers, and do 
not taper towards the end, but are nearly of equal thickness at 
both extremities. Their feet have really only three joints ; but 
as the under-side of the first joint is marked by one or two cross 
lines, the feet, when seen only from below, seem to be four or 
five jointed. The females have not a long projecting piercer hke 
the crickets and grasshoppers, but the extremity of their body is 
provided with four short, wedge-like pieces, placed in pairs above 
and below, and opening and shutting opposite to each other, thus 
forming an instrument like a pair of nippers, only with four short 
blades instead of two. When one of these insects is about to lay 
her eggs, she drives these little wedges into the earth ; these, 
being then opened and withdrawn, enlarge the orifice ; upon 
which the insect inserts them again, and drives them down deeper 
than before, and repeats the operation above described until she 
has formed a perforation large and deep enough to admit nearly 
the whole of her abdomen. The males, though capable of pro- 



an insect which I suppose to be the Conoccphaliis dissimitis of Serville. It was 
taken in North Carolina by Professor Hentz. The conical projection of the head 
is shorter and more obtuse than in the ensige.r, the sides of the thorax are brown- 
ish, the hindmost thighs have a double row of black dots on the under-side, and 
the spines on this part are more numerous and rather larger. Professor Hentz has 
sent to me from Alabama another species distinct from both of these, about the 
same in length, but considerably broader. The conical part of the head between 
the eyes is broader, flattened above, and, as well as the thorax, rough like sliagreen. 
There is a projecting tubercle beneath, but the curved black line is wanting, and 
the tip of the cone has a minute point abruptly bent downwards, and forming a 
hook. The sides of the thorax are bent down si-ddenly so as to make an angular 
ridge on each side of the middle. The wing-covers are dotted with black around 
their edges, and have also an irregular row of larger and more distinct spots along 
the middle. The hindmost thighs have a double row of strong spines beneath, 
and the piercer is straight and only about six tenths of an inch long. This insect 
may be called Conocephalus uncinatus, from the hook on the tip of the head. 



ORTHOPTERA. 133 

ducing sounds, have not the cymbals and tabors of the crickets 
and grasshoppers ; their instruments may rather be hkened to 
violins, their hind-legs being the bows, and the projecting veins of 
their wing-covers the strings. But besides these, they have on 
each side of the body, in the first segment of the abdomen, just 
above and a little behind the thighs, a deep cavity closed by a 
thin piece of skin stretched tightly across it. These probably act 
in some measure to increase the reverberation of the sound, like 
the cavity of a violin. When a locust begins to play, he bends 
the shank of one hind-leg beneath the thigh, where it is lodged in 
a furrow designed to receive it, and then draws the leg briskly up 
and down several times against the projecting lateral edge and 
veins of the wing-cover. He does not play both fiddles together, 
but alternately, for a little time, first upon one, and then on 
the other, standing meanwhile upon the four anterior legs and 
the hind-leg which is not otherwise employed. It is stated that, 
in Spain, people of fashion keep these insects, which they call 
grillo, in cages, for the sake of their music. Locusts leap much 
better than grasshoppers, for the thighs of their hind legs, though 
shorter, are much thicker, and consequently more muscular 
within. The back part of the shanks of these legs, from a little 
below the knee to the end, is armed with strong sharp spines, 
arranged in two rows. These may serve as means of defence, 
but the lower ones also help to fix the legs firmly against the 
ground when the insect is going to leap. The power of flight in 
locusts is, in general, much greater than that of grasshoppers ; for 
the wing-covers, being narrow, do not, like the much wider ones 
of grasshoppers, so much impede their passage through the air ; 
while their wings, which are ample, except in a few species, and 
when expanded together form half of a circle, have very strong 
joints, and are moved by very powerful muscles within the chest. 
From the shoulders of the wings several stout ribs or veins pass 
towards the hinder margin, spreading apart, when the wings are 
opened, like the sticks of a fan, and are connected and strength- 
ened bylitde crossing veins, which form a kind of net-work. The 
same structure exists in the wings of grasshoppers, but in them 
the longitudinal ribs are not so strong, and the network is much 
more delicate. Hence the flight of grasshoppers is short and un- 



134 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

steady, while that of locusts is longer and better sustained. Many 
locusts, when they fly, make a loud whizzing noise, the source of 
which does not seem to be understood. Those of our native 
locusts, whose flight is the most noisy, are the coral-winged, the 
yellow-winged, and the broad-winged species. But as these are 
comparatively small insects, and never assemble in such great 
swarms as the much larger migrating locusts of Asia and Africa, 
the noise of their flight bears no comparison to that of the latter. 
When a large number of these take flight together, it is said that 
the noise is like the rushing of a whirlwind ; and hence we read, 
of the symbolical locusts of the Apocalypse, that the sound of 
their wings was as the sound of chariots of horses running to bat- 
tle* ; and, of others, that their coming is like the noise of chariots 
on the tops of mountains, or the crackling of stubble when over- 
run, and consumed by a flame of fire f. 

The East seems to have suffered severely at various times 
from the irruptions of immense swarms of locusts, darkening the 
sky during their passage, stripping the surface of the earth, where 
they alight, of all vestiges of vegetation, and thus reducing, in an 
inconceivably short time, the most fertile regions to barren 
wastes. The ground over which they have passed presents the 
appearance of having been scorched by fire, and hence the name 
of locust, which is derived from the Latin |, and means a burnt 
place, is highly expressive of the desolation occasioned by their 
ravages. Famine and pestilence have sometimes followed their 
appearance, as we find recorded by various writers. In the 
Scriptures § frequent mention is made of the destructive powers 
of locusts, and these accounts are fully confirmed by the testimony 
of numerous travellers in Asia and Africa, some of whom have 
been eyewitnesses of the devastations of these insects. Among 



* Revelations IX. 11. t Joel II. 5. } Locus and ustus. 

§ For an explanation of the various passages in which allusion is made to lo- 
custs, and for much interesting matter, relating to the history of these insects as 
contained in the Bible and elucidated by the accounts of historians and travellers, 
the reader is referred to the article locust in the learned and instructive work of my 
father, entitled " The Natural History of the Bible, by Thaddeus Mason Harris." 
8vo. Boston: 1820. 



ORTHOPTERA. 135 

the later accounts, that contained in OHvier's " Travels " does 
not seem to have been quoted by English writers. The follow- 
ing is a free translation of the passage. Olivier, at the time of 
writing it, was in Syria. " After a burning south wind had pre- 
vailed for some time, there came, from the interior of Arabia and 
from the southern parts of Persia, clouds of locusts, whose 
ravages in these countries are as grievous and as sudden as the 
destruction occasioned in Europe by the most severe hail-storm. 
Of these my companion, M. Brugieres, and myself were twice 
witnesses. It is difficult to describe the effect produced on us 
by the sight of the whole atmosphere filled, on all sides, to a vast 
height, with a countless multitude of these insects, which flew 
along with a slow and even motion, and with a noise like the 
dashmg of a shower of rain. The heavens were darkened by 
them, and the light of the sun was sensibly diminished. In a 
moment the roofs of the houses, the streets, and all the fields 
were completely covered with these insects, and in two days they 
almost entirely devoured the foliage of every plant. Fortunately, 
however, they continued but a short time, and seemed to have 
emigrated only for the purpose of providing for a continuation of 
their kind. In fact, nearly all of them which we saw on the next 
day were paired, and in a day or two afterwards the ground was 
covered with their dead bodies."* These were not the still 
more celebrated and destructive migratory locusts (Locusta mi- 
gratoria), but consisted of the species called Jicrydium pere- 
grinum. 

Although the ravages of locusts in America are not followed by 
such serious consequences as in the Eastern continent, yet they 
are sufficiently formidable to have attracted attention, and not un- 
frequently have these insects laid waste considerable tracts, and 
occasioned no little loss to the cultivator of the soil. Our salt- 
marshes, which are accounted among the most productive and 
valuable of our natural meadows, are frequented by great numbers 
of the small red-legged species (Acrydium. femur-rubrum), inter- 
mingled occasionally with some larger kinds. These, in certain 



* Olivier, Voyage dans I'Empire Ottoman, I'Egyple et la Perse. Tom. II. 
p. 424. 



136 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

seasons, almost entirely consume the grass of these marshes, from 
whence they then take their course to the uplands, devouring, in 
their way, grass, corn, and vegetables, till checked by the early 
frosts, or by the close of the natural term of their existence. 
When a scanty crop of hay has been gathered from the grounds 
which these puny pests have ravaged, it becomes so tainted with 
the putrescent bodies of the dead locusts contained in it, that it is 
rejected by horses and cattle. In this country locusts are not 
distinguished from grasshoppers, and are generally, though incor- 
rectly, comprehended under the same name, or under that of flying 
grasshoppers. They, are, however, if we make allowance for 
their inferior size, quite as voracious and injurious to vegetation 
during the young or larva and pupa states, when they are not pro- 
vided with wings, as they are when fully grown. In our news- 
papers I have sometimes seen accounts of the devastations of 
grasshoppers, which could only be applicable to some of our 
locusts. At various times they have appeared in great abundance 
in different parts of New England. It is stated that, in Maine, 
" during dry seasons, they often appear in great multitudes, and 
are the greedy destroyers of the half-parched herbage." " In 
1749 and 1754 they were very numerous and voracious ; no 
vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; they even devoured the 
potato tops ; and in 1743 and 1756 they covered the whole 
country and threatened to devour every thing green. Indeed, so 
great was the alarm they occasioned among the people, that days of 
fasting and prayer were appointed*," on account of the threat- 
ened calamity. The southern and western parts of l^^ew Hamp- 
shire, the northern and eastern parts of Massachusetts, and the 
southern part of Vermont have been overrun by swarms of these 
miscalled grasshoppers, and have suffered more or less from their 
depredations. Among the various accounts which I have seen, 
the following, extracted from the Travels of the late President 
Dwightf, seems to be the most full and circumstantial. " Ben- 
nington (Vermont), and its iieighbourhood, have for some time 
past been infested by grasshoppers (locusts) of a kind, with which 

* See Williamson's History of Maine, Vol. I. p. 102, lO^J, and compare with 
p. 172 of the same work. 

t Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight. Vol. II. p. 403. 



ORTHOPTERA. 137 

I had before been wholly unacquainted. At least, their history, 
as given by respectable persons, is in a great measure novel. 
They appear at different periods, in different years ; but the time 
of their continuance seems to be the same. This year, (1798), 
they came four weeks earlier than in 1797, and disappeared four 
weeks sooner. As I had no opportunity of examining them, 1 
cannot describe their form or their size. Their favorite food is 
clover and maize. Of the latter they devour the part which is 
called the silk ; the immediate means of fecundating the ear ; and 
thus prevent the kernel from coming to perfection. But their vo- 
racity extends to almost every vegetable ; even to the tobacco 
plant and the burdock. Nor are they confined to vegetables 
alone. The garments of laborers, hung up in the field while they 
are at work, these insects destroy in a few hours ; and with the 
same voracity they devour the loose particles which the saw 
leaves upon the surface of pine boards, and which, when separ- 
ated, are termed saw-dust. The appearance of a board fence, 
from which the particles had been eaten in this manner, and which 
I saw, was novel and singular ; and seemed the result, not of the 
operations of the plane, but of attrition. At times, particularly a 
little before their disappearance, they collect in clouds, rise high 
in the atmosphere, and take extensive flights, of which neither the 
cause, nor the direction has hitherto been discovered. I was au- 
thentically informed that some persons, employed in raising the 
steeple of the church in Williamstown, were, while standing near 
the vane, covered by them, and saw, at the same time, vast 
swarms of them flying far above their heads. It is to be observed, 
however, that they customarily return, and perish on the very 
grounds which they have ravaged." Through the kindness of the 
Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hampshire, I have been 
favored with specimens of the destructive locusts which occa- 
sionally appear in that part of New England, and which, most 
probably, are of the same species as the insects mentioned by 
President Dwight. They prove to be the little red-legged locusts, 
whose ravages on our salt-marshes I have already recorded. In 
the summer of 1838, the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, was 
infested by insects of this kind ; and I was informed by a young 
gentleman, from that place, then a student in Harvard University, 
18 



138 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

that they were so thick and destructive in the garden and grounds 
of his father, that the negroes were employed to drive them from 
the garden with rods ; and in this way they were repeatedly 
whipped out of the grounds, leaping and flying before the ex- 
tended line of castigators like a flock of fowls. Some of these 
insects were brought to me by the same gentleman, on his return 
to the University, at the end of the summer vacation, and they 
turned out to be specimens of the red-legged locusts already men- 
tioned. 

It is not to be supposed that these are the only depredatory 
locusts in this country. Massachusetts, alone, produces a large 
number of species, some of which have never been described ; and 
the habits of many of them have not been fully investigated. The 
difficulty which I have met with in ascertaining, from mere verbal 
reports, or from the accounts that occasionally appear in our pub- 
Uc prints, the scientific names of the noxious insects which are the 
subjects of such remarks, and the impossibility, without this 
knowledge of their names, of fixing upon the true culprits, has 
induced me to draw up, in this treatise, brief descriptions of all 
our locusts, as a guide to other persons in their investigations. 

All the locusts of Massachusetts, that are known to me, may 
be included in three large groups or genera, viz : Acrydium (of 
GeofFroy and Latreille), Locusta [Gryllus Locusta of Linnseus), 
and Teirix (of Latreille). These three genera may be distin- 
guished from each other by the following characters.* 



* I have not considered it necessary to give, in addition to these, the characters 
that distinguish them from the other genera of American Locusts, which are not 
found in Massachusetts ; but add the characteristics of tliese genera in this note. 

Opsomala. Body slender and cyhndrical ; head long and conical, extending 
with an obtuse point between the antennse ; eyes oblong oval and oblique ; an- 
tennae short, flattened, and more or less enlarged towards the base and tapering 
towards the point; a pointed tubercle between the fore-legs on the breast; wing- 
covers narrow and pointed ; face sloping down towards the breast, and forming 
an acute angle with the top of the head. 

Truxalis. Body rather thicker ; head shorter, but ending in a blunt cone be- 
tween the antennse ; eyes oval and oblique ; antennae short, flattened, enlarged 
near the base, and tapering to a point; no tubercle between the fore-legs ; wing- 
covers wider and not so pointed ; face sloping towards the breast, and forming an 
angle of forty-five degrees with the top of the head ; thorax flat above, and marked 
with three longitudinal elevated lines. 



ORTHOPTERA. 139 

1. Acrydium. The thorax (prothorax of Kirby) and the wing- 
covers of ordinary dimensions ; a projecting spine in the middle 
of the breast ; and a httle projecting cushion between the nails of 
all the feet. 

2. Locusta. The thorax, and usually the wing-covers also, of 
ordinary dimensions ; no projecting spine in the middle of the 
breast ; cushions between the nails of the feet. 

3. Tetrix. The thorax {prothorax) greatly prolonged, taper- 
ing to a point behind, and covering the whole of the 43ack to the 
extremity of the abdomen ; wing-covers exceedingly minute, con- 
sisting only of a little scale on each side of the body ; forepart 
of the breast forming a projection, like a cravat or stock, to re- 
ceive the lower part of the head ; no spine in the middle of the 
breast ; no cushions between the nails. 

I. ACRYDIUM. Spine-breasted Locusts. 

This word, which is nearly the same as one of the Greek 
names of a locust, has been variously applied by different ento- 
mologists. I have followed Latreille and Serville in confining it 
to those locusts which have a projecting spine or tubercle in the 
middle of the forepart of the breast between the fore-legs. To 
this genus belong the following native species. 

1. t^crydium alutaceum. Leather-colored locust. 

Dirty brownish yellow ; a paler yellow stripe on the top of the 
head and thorax ; a slightly elevated longitudinal hne on the 
top of the thorgx ; wing-covers semitransparent, with irregular 
brownish spots ; wings transparent, uncolored, netted with dirty 

Xiphicera. Robust ; head not conical, but with a projection between the an- 
tennas ; face vertical ; antennEe rather short, flattened more or less, and tapering 
at the end ; a spine between the fore-legs on the breast; wing-covers about as long 
as the abdomen, obtuse or notched at the end; thorax with three elevated crested 
lines, which are frequently notched. 

Romalea. Very thick and short ; head obtuse ; face vertical ; antennae short, 
of equal thickness to the end, seventeen or eighteen jointed ; thorax with a some- 
what elevated crest ; a spine between the fore-legs on the breast ; wing-covers and 
wings much shorter than the abdomen. 

The first two of these genera seem to connect the cone-headed grasshoppers 
with the locust family, while the last two approach nearer to the genas .Acrydium ; 
many foreign genera, however, are interposed between them. 



140 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

yellow ; abdomen with transverse rows of minute blackish dots ; 
hindmost thighs whhish within and without, the white portion 
bounded by a row of minute distant black dots, and crossed, her- 
ring-bone fashion, by numerous brown lines ; hindmost shanks 
reddish, with yellowish white spines, which are tipped with black. 
Length, to the end of the abdomen, 1| inch ; the wing-covers 
expand over 3 inches. 

This insect was brought to me, from Martha's Vineyard, by Mr. 
Robert Treat Paine. It bears a close resemblance in form to 
Jlcrydium Americanum of De Geer, a much larger and more 
showy Southern species. 

2. Acrydium jlavo-vittatum.* Yellow-striped locust. 

Olive-colored, with a yellowish line on each side from the fore- 
head to the tips of the wing-covers ; hindmost shanks and feet 
blood-red, the spines tipped with black ; wings transparent, faintly 
tinged with pale green, and netted with greenish brown lines. 
The abdomen of the male is very obtuse and curves upwards 
at the end, and is furnished, on each side of the tip, with a rather 
large oblong square appendage, which has a little projecting angle 
in the middle of the lower side. Length, to tip of the abdomen, 
from 1 inch to IJ ; expands from 1|- inch to 2 inches. 

This and the following species probably belong to the subgenus 
Oxya of Serville. The yellow-striped locust is one of our most 
common insects. It is readily known by its color, and by the 
two yellowish lines on the thorax, extending, when the insect ac- 
quires wings, along the inner margin of the wing-covers. It is 
very troublesome in gardens, climbing upon the stems of beans, 
peas, and flowers, devouring the leaves of petals, and defihng 
them with its excrement. The young begin to appear in June, 
and they come to their growth and acquire their wings by the first 
of August. When about to moult, like other locusts, they cling 
to the stem of some plant, till the skin bursts and the insect with- 



* This species agrees, in some respects, with Serville's Jlcrydium olivaceum, but 
it is a smaller insect, the hind shanks are not blue, and the last ventral segment 
of the male is not deeply notched at tip, but is entire and somewhat pointed. It 
does not agree any better with Say's description of Gryllus hivittatus, which pos- 
sibly is the same as Serville's species above named. 



ORTHOPTERA. 141 

draws its body and legs from it, and leaves the cast-skin still 
fastened to the plant. 

3. Acrydium femur-rubrum. Red-legged locust. 

Grizzled with dirty olive and brown ; a black spot extending 
from the eyes along the sides of the thorax ; an oblique yellow 
line on each side of the body beneath the wings ; a row of dusky 
brown spots along the middle of the wing-covers ; and the hind- 
most shanks and feet blood-red, with black spines. The wings 
are transparent, with a very pale greenish yellow tint next to the 
body, and are netted with brown lines. The hindmost thighs 
have two large spots, on the upper side, and the extremity, black ; 
but are red below, and yellow on the inside. The appendages at 
the tip of the body in the male are of a long triangular form. 
Length from | inch to 1 inch ; exp. 1| to If inch. 

The red-legged locust was first described by De Geer from 
specimens sent to him from Pennsylvania, and I have retained the 
scientific name which he gave to it. It is the Gryllus (Locusta) 
erythropus of Gmelin, and the Acrydium femorale of Olivier. 
It appears to be very generally diffused throughout the United 
States, and sometimes so greatly abounds, in certain places, as to 
be productive of great injury to vegetation. I have already de- 
scribed its prevalence on our salt marshes ; and it seems to con- 
stitute those large migrating swarms whose flight has been observed 
and recorded in various parts of this country. It comes to ma- 
turity with us by the latter part of July, some broods, however, 
a little earlier, and others later. It is most plentiful and destruc- 
tive during the months of August and September, and does not 
disappear till some time in October. 

II. LocusTA. Locusts propcr. 

With the English entomologists, I apply the name Locusta to 
that genus which includes the celebrated migrating locust, or 
Gryllus Locusta migratoria of Linnaeus. By the older French 
entomologists the insects contained in it were united to the genus 
Jlcrydium; but Latreille afterwards separated them from Acrydi- 
um under the generical name of Q^dipoda (which means swelled 
leg), and he is followed in this by Serville, the latest writer on 



142 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the Orthoptera. In the insects of this genus the breast is not 
armed with a blunt spine or tubercle, a character which distin- 
guishes the genus Acrydium from it. In other respects these two 
genera are much alike. 

1. Locusta Carolina.* Carolina locust. 

Pale yellowish brown, with small dusky spots ; wings black, 
with a broad yellow hind margin, which is covered with dusky 
spots at the tip. Length from 1 to 1| inch ; exp. 2| to above 
3| inches. 

A more detailed description of this large, common, and well- 
known species is unnecessary. The Carolina locust is found in 
abundance by the road-side, from the middle to the end of sum- 
mer. It generally makes use of its large and handsome wings in 
moving from place to place. It is frequently found in company 
with the red-legged locust in the vicinity of salt marshes, but it 
generally prefers warm and dry situations. Pairing takes place 
with this species in the months of September and October, im- 
mediately after which the female prepares to lay her eggs. These 
are deposited at the bottom of a cylindrical hole in the ground, 
made in the manner already described, and are not hatched till 
the following spring. The abdomen of the female admits of being 
greatly extended in length, hence she frequently deposits her eggs 
at the depth of nearly two inches beneath the surface of the soil. 

2. Locusta corallina. Coral-winged locust. 

Light brown ; spotted with dark brown on the wing-covers ; 
wings light vermilion or coral-red, with an external dusky border, 
which is wide and paler at the tip, narrowed and darker behind ; 
hind shanks yellow with black-tipped spines. Length 1 to 1| 
inch ; exp. 2| to 2| inches. 

This species closely resembles the Jlcridium tuberculatum of 
Palisot de Beauvois, which seems to be the Q^dipoda discoidea 
of Serville, found in the Southern States, of a much larger size 
than the coral-winged locust, and having the wings of a much 
deeper and duller red color, and the blackish border not so much 



Gryllus Locusta Carolinus, Linnasus. 



ORTHOPTERA. 143 

narrowed behind. It cannot be mistaken for the fenestralis, 
which M. Serville describes as having the antennae nearly as long 
as the body, whereas in this species they are not half that length. 
The coral-winged locust is the first that makes its appearance 
with wings in the spring, being found flying about in warm and 
dry pastures as early as the middle of April or the first of May, 
and is rendered very conspicuous by its bright colored wings, and 
the loud noise which it makes in flying. It probably passes the 
winter in the pupa state, and undergoes its last transformation in 
the spring ; but its history is not yet fully known to me, and this 
opinion is the result only of conjecture. 

3. Locusta sulphurea. Yellow-winged locust. 

Dusky brown ; thorax slightly keeled in the middle ; wing- 
covers ash-colored at their extremities, more or less distinctly 
spotted with brown ; wings deep yellow next to the body, dusky 
at tip, the yellow portion bounded beyond the middle by a broad 
dusky brown band, which curves and is prolonged on the hind 
margin, but does not reach the angle next to the extremity of the 
body ; hindmost thighs blackish at the end, and with two black 
and two whitish bands on the inside ; hindmost shanks and their 
spines black, with a broad whitish ring just below the knees. 
Length y\ to 1| inch ; exp. If to 2| inches. 

This insect agrees tolerably well with the brief description 
given by Fabricius of his Gryllus sulphureus, except that the 
wings are not sulphur-yellow, but of a deeper tint. It is also 
described and figured by Palisot de Beauvois under the name of 
Acridium sulphureum. It is a rare species in this vicinity. I 
have taken it, though sparingly, in its perfect state, in May and 
in September. The elevated ridge on the top of the thorax is 
higher than in any other species found in Massachusetts. 

4. Locusta maritima. Maritime locust. 

Ash-gray ; face variegated with white ; wing-covers sprinkled 
with minute brownish spots, and semitransparent at tip ; wings 
transparent, faintly tinted with yellow next the body, uncolored at 
tip, with a series of irregular blackish spots forming a curved 
band across the middle ; hindmost shanks and feet pale yellow, 



144 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

with the extreme points of the spines black. Length | to IJ 
inch ; exp. 1-j^, inch to 2| inches. 

This species comes very near to Mr. Kirby's description of 
the Locusta leucostoma ; but is evidently distinct from it, and 
does not appear to have been described before. I have received 
it from Sandwich, and have found it in great abundance among 
the coarse grass which grows near the edges of our sandy beach- 
es, but have never seen it except in the immediate vicinity of the 
sea. It comes to maturity and lays its eggs about the middle of 
August or a little later. 

5. Locusta cequalis. Barren-ground locust. 

Ash-gray, mottled with dusky brown and white ; wing-covers 
semitransparent at tip, with numerous dusky spots which run 
together so as to form three transverse bands ; wings light yellow 
on their basal half, transparent with dusky veins and a few spots 
at the tip, with an intermediate broad black band, which, curving 
and becoming narrower on the hind margin, is continued to the 
inner angle of the wing ; hindmost shanks coral-red, with a broad 
white ring below the knees, and the spines tipped with black. 
Length 1| inch ; exp. 2^ inches. 

Mr. Say, to whom I sent a specimen of this handsome locust, 
informed me that it was his Gryllus equalis, probably intended for 
CBqualis. It is found, during the months of July and August, on 
dry barren hills and on sandy plains, upon the scanty herbage in- 
termingled with the rein-deer moss. 

6. Locusta latipennis. Broad- winged locust. 

Ash-colored, mottled with black and gray ; wing-covers semi- 
transparent beyond the middle, with numerous blackish spots which 
run together at the base, and form a band across the middle ; 
wings broad, light yellow on the basal half, the remainder dusky 
but partially transparent, with black network, and deep black at 
tip, and an intermediate irregular band, formed by a contiguous 
series of black spots, reaching only to the hind margin, but not 
continued towards the inner angle ; hindmost shanks pale yellow, 
with a black ring below the knees, a broader one at the extremity, 
and a blackish spot behind the upper part of the shank. Length 
j% inch ; exp. ly'^g inch. 



ORTHOPTERA. 145 

It is possible that this may be a variety of the preceding spe- 
cies, from which it differs especially in the form and width of the 
wings and in the colors of the hindmost shanks. It is found in 
the same places, and at the same time as the barren-ground locust. 

7. Locusta marmorafa. Marbled locust. 

Ash-colored, variegated with pale yellow and black ; thorax 
suddenly narrowed before the middle, and the slightly elevated 
longitudinal line on the top is cut through in the middle by a 
transverse fissure ; wing-covers marbled with large whitish and 
black spots, and semitransparent at the end ; wings light yehow 
on the half next to the body, transparent near the end, with two 
black spots on the tip, and a broad intermediate black band, 
which, narrowed and curving inwards on the hind margin, nearly 
reaches the inner angle ; hindmost thighs pale yellow, black at 
the extremity, and nearly surrounded by two broad black bands ; 
hind shanks coral-red, with a black ring immediately below the 
knee, and followed by a white ring, black at the lower extremity 
also, with the tips of the spines black. In some individuals there 
is an additional black ring below the white one on the shanks. 
Length from j\ to above y\ inch ; exp. ly*^ to ly^^ inch. 

The marbled locust, which is one of our prettiest species, is 
found in the open places contiguous to or within pitch-pine woods, 
flying over the scanty grass and rein-deer moss which not unfre- 
quently grow in these situations. It is marked on the wings 
somewhat like the barren-ground locust, but is invariably smaller, 
with the thorax much more contracted before the middle. It 
appears, in the perfect state, from the middle of July to the mid- 
dle of October. 

8. Locusta eucerata. Long-horned locust. 

Ash-colored, variegated with gray and dark brown ; antennae 
nearly as long as the body, and with flattened joints ; thorax very 
much pinched or compressed laterally before the middle, with a 
slightly elevated longitudinal line, which is interrupted by two 
notches ; wing-covers and wings long and narrow ; the former 
variegated with dusky spots, and semitransparent at tip ; wings 
next to the body yellow, sometimes pale, sometimes deep and 
19 



146 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

almost orange colored, at other times uncolored and semitranspar- 
ent ; with a broad black band across the middle, which is narrow- 
ed and prolonged on the hinder margin, and extends quite to the 
inner angle ; beyond the band the wings are transparent, with the 
tips black or covered with blackish spots ; hindmost shanks whit- 
ish, with a black ring at each end, a broader one of the same color 
just above the middle, and the spines tipped with black. Length 
i inch to -^\ inch ; exp. ly\ inch to more than 1| inch. 

The wings of this species are very variable in color at the base. 
The fenestralis described by M. Serville has the base of the 
wings vermilion red, but in other respects it approaches to this 
species. The long-horned locust is found oftentimes in company 
with the marbled species, and also near sea-beaches with the 
maritime locust, from the last of July to the middle of October. 

9. Locusta nebulosa. Clouded locust. 

Dusky brown ; thorax with a slender keel-like elevation, which 
is cut across in the middle by a transverse fissure ; wing-covers 
pale, clouded and spotted with brown ; wings transparent, dusky 
at tip, with a dark brown line on the front margin ; hindmost 
shanks brown, with darker spines, and a broad whitish ring below 
the knees. Length from y\ inch to more than 1/^ inch ; exp. 
from 1| inch to more than 2 inches. 

A very common species, and easily known by its clouded wing- 
covers and colorless wings. It abounds in pastures and even in 
corn-fields and gardens, during the months of September and 
October, at which time it is furnished with wings and may often 
be seen paired or busied in laying eggs. It does not appear to 
have been described before. 

The three following locusts differ from the preceding in having 
the antennae shorter than the thorax, and slightly thickened to- 
wards the end, and the face somewhat oblique, the mouth being 
nearer the breast than in our other species of Locusta ; and they 
seem to constitute a distinct group or subgenus, which may re- 
ceive the name of Tragocephala, or goat-headed locusts. 



ORTHOPTERA. 147 

10. Locusta (^Tragocephala) infuscata. Dusky locust. 

Dusky brown ; thorax with a slender keel-like elevation ; wing- 
covers faintly spotted with brown ; wings transparent, pale green- 
ish yellow next to the body, with a large dusky cloud near the 
middle of the hind margin, and a black line on the front margin ; 
hind thighs pale, with two large black spots on the inside ; hind 
shanks brown, with darker spines, and a broad whitish ring below 
the knees. Length | inch ; exp. above IJ inch. 

This somewhat resembles the clouded locust, from which, 
however, it is easily distinguished by its much shorter antennae and 
the dusky cloud on the hinder margin of the wings. I have cap- 
tured it in pastures, in the perfect state, from the middle of May 
to near the end of July. I believe that it has never been de- 
scribed before. 

11. Locusta (Tragocephala) viridi-fasciata. Green-striped locust. 

Green ; thorax keeled above ; wing-covers with a broad green 
stripe on the outer margin extending from the base beyond the mid- 
dle and including two small dusky spots on the edge, the remainder 
dusky but semitransparent at the end ; wings transparent, very pale 
greenish yellow next to the body, with a large dusky cloud near 
the middle of the hind margin, and a black line on the front mar- 
gin ; antennas, fore and middle legs reddish ; hind thighs green, 
with two black spots in the furrow beneath ; hind shanks blue- 
gray, with a broad whitish ring below the knees, and the spines 
whitish, tipped with black. Length about 1 inch ; exp. from 
more than 1| to nearly 2 inches. 

This insect is the tBcrydium viridi-fasciatum of De Geer, who 
was the first describer of it, the Gryllus Virginianus of Fabri- 
cius, the Gryllus Locusta chrysomelas of Gmelin, the Acrydium 
marginatum of OHvier, and the Acridium hemipterum of Palisot 
de Beauvois. It is remarkable that a species, so strongly marked 
as this is, should have been so profusely named. Palisot de 
Beauvois seems to have selected the most appropriate name for 
it ; for the green portion of the wing-covers is thick and opake, 
and the dusky portion thin and semitransparent, as in the wing- 
covers of Hemipterous insects. It is very common in pastures 



148 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and mowing lands from the first of June to the middle of August, 
being found in various states of maturity throughout this period. 
The young also appear still earlier, and are readily known by 
their green color, and large compressed thorax, which is arched 
and crested or keeled above, and by their very short and flattened 
antennae. These locusts are sometimes very troublesome in gar- 
dens, living upon the leaves of vegetables and flowers, and attack- 
ing the buds and half expanded petals. The larvae or young 
survive the winter, sheltered among the roots of grass and under 
leaves. 

12. Locusta {Tragocephala) radiata. Radiated locust. 

Rust-brown ; thorax keeled above ; wing-covers entirely brown, 
but semitransparent at the end ; wings transparent, with brown 
network, and the principal longitudinal veins black ; they are very 
faintly tinted with green next to the body, have a large dusky 
cloud near the middle of the hind margin, and a brown streak on 
the front margin ; hind shanks reddish brown, a little paler below 
the knees, and the spines tipped with black. Length about 1 
inch ; exp. from If to 2 inches. 

This species is now for the first time described. It seems to 
be rare. I captpred one specimen in Cambridge on the first of 
July, and have received another from Dr. D. S. C. H. Smith of 
Sutton, Massachusetts. It is found in North Carolina as early as 
the month of May in the perfect state. 

The following species have the face still more oblique than the 
foregoing, but the antennae are much longer, particularly in the 
males, in which they nearly equal the body in length, and are not 
enlarged towards the end. The eyes are oval and oblique, and 
there is a deep hollow before each of them for the reception of 
the first joint of the antennae. The thorax is not crested or 
keeled, but is flattened above, with three slender threadlike ele- 
vated lines, and the hind margin is very nearly transverse, or not 
much (if at all) angulated behind. The wing-covers and wings 
are extremely short. The hind-legs are long and slender. I 
propose therefore to separate these species from the other locusts 
under a subgenus by the name of Chlo'mltis, derived from the 
Greek, and signifying a grasshopper. 



ORTHOPTERA. 149 

13. Locusta (Chloealtis) conspersa. Sprinkled locust. 

Light bay, sprinkled with black spots ; a black line on the head 
behind each eye, extending on each side of the thorax on the 
lateral elevated line ; wing-covers oblong oval, pale yellowish 
brown, with numerous small darker brown spots ; wings about 
three twentieths of an inch long, transparent, with dusky lines at 
the tip ; hind shanks pale red, with the spines black at the end. 
Length nearly j\ inch. 

This may be merely a variety of the following species, though 
very differently colored. 

14. Locusta (Chlo'ealtis) abortiva. Abortive locust. 

Brown ; wing-covers with dark brown veins and confluent 
spots, covering two thirds of the abdomen ; wings three twentieths 
of an inch long, transparent, with dusky lines at the tip ; hind 
margin of the thorax straight ; hind shanks coral-red, whitish 
just below the knees, the spines tipped with black. Length 
nearly ■j\ inch. 

This and the preceding locust, have much the appearance of 
pupae or young insects, nevertheless I believe that their wings and 
wing-covers never become larger, and Mr. Leonard informs me 
that they are found paired. I have captured the abortive locust 
in pastures near the end of July. 

15. Locusta (Chlo'ealtis) curtipennis.* Short- winged locust. 

Olive-gray above, variegated with dark gray and black 5. legs 
and body beneath yellow ; a broad black line extends from behind 
each eye on the sides of the thorax ; wing-covers, in the male, 
as long as the abdomen, in the female, covering two thirds of the 
abdomen ; wings rather shorter than the wing-covers, transparent, 
and faintly tinged with yellow ; hinder knees black ; spines on 
the hind shanks tipped with black. Length from | to more than 
j% inch ; exp. from j\ to nearly 1 inch. 

The flight of the short-winged locust is noiseless and short, 

* This species closely resembles a Swedish insect which I have received under 
the name of ■paralklus, Zetterstedt ; but is evidently distinct from it. 



150 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

but it leaps well. Great numbers of these insects are found in 
our low meadows, in the perfect state, from the first of August 
till the middle of October. They are easily distinguished from 
other locusts by their short and narrow wings, by the yellow color 
of the body beneath, and by the yellow legs and black knees. 

III. TETRix. Grouse-locust. 

The Greeks applied the name of Tetrix to some kind of grouse, 
probably the heath-cock of Europe, and Latreille adopted it for 
a genus of locusts in which, perhaps, he fancied some resem- 
blance to the bird in question. Linnaeus placed these locusts in 
a division of his genus Gryllus which he called Bulla, a name 
that ought to have been retained for them. The principal dis- 
tinguishing characters of the genus have already been given, and 
I will only add that the body is broadest between the middle legs, 
narrows gradually to a point behind, and very abruptly to the head, 
which is much smaller than in the other locusts. The wings are 
large, forming nearly the quadrant of a circle, thin and delicate, 
and scalloped on the edge ; when not in use they are folded be- 
neath the projecting thorax. The four boring appendages of the 
females are notched on their edges with fine teeth, like a saw. 
Latreille and Serville have stated that the antennae consist of only 
thirteen or fourteen joints ; but some of our native species have 
twenty-two joints in the antennae. Upon this variation I would 
arrange those now to be described in two groups. 

I. Antennce 14-jointed ; eyes very prominent, with a projecting 
ridge between them, formed by a horizontal extension of the flat top 
of the head ; thorax prolonged beyond the extremity of the body. 

1 . Tetrix ornata. Ornamented grouse-locust. 

Dark ash-colored ; a large white patch between four black 
spots on the top of the thorax ; a white spot on the top of the 
hind thighs ; thorax nearly or quite as long as the wings. Length 
^^ to j% inch to the apex of the thorax. 

This species varies in wanting the white spot on the top of the 
thorax sometimes. It was first described by Mr. Say, under the 
name of Acrydium ornatum.^ 

* American Entomology. Vol. 1. Plate 5. 



ORTHOPTERA. 151 

2. Tetrix dorsalis. Red-spotted grouse-locust. 

Rusty black, with ochre-yellow spots on the sides and legs, and 
a large rust-red spot on the top of the thorax ; wings extending 
beyond the apex of the thorax. Length ^ inch. 

3. Tetrix quadrimaculata. Four-spotted grouse-locust. 

Ash-colored or dark gray above, variegated with black ; four 
velvet-black spots on the top of the thorax ; wings projecting 
beyond the extremity of the thorax. Length from y*^ to j\ of 
an inch. 

This is a shorter and thicker species than the ornamented 
grouse-locust. It is not uncommon in pastures from the first of 
May to the first of June. 

4. Tetrix bilineata. Two-lined grouse-locust. 

Ash-colored ; thorax paler, with a narrow angular whitish line, 
on each side, extending from the head beyond the middle ; the 
angular portion including a long blackish patch on each side ; 
wings, in the male, rather shorter than the thorax, in the female 
longer. Length from 3^^^ to more than /„ inch. 

5. Tetrix sordida. Sordid grouse-locust. 

Yellowish ash-colored ; thorax with minute elevated black 
points ; wings, in both sexes, rather longer than the thorax. 
Length from -^^ inch to nearly | inch. 

I have taken this species both in May and September, and have 
received a specimen from Dr. D. S. C. H. Smith, of Sutton, 
Massachusetts. 

IL Antennoi 22-jointed ; eyes hardly prominent, top of the head 
not horizontal between them, but curving towards the front, with a 
very slightly projecting ridge ; wings smaller than in those of the 
preceding group. 

6. Tetrix lateralis. Black-sided grouse-locust. 

Pale brown ; sides of the body blackish ; thorax yellowish 
clay-colored, shorter than the wings, but longer than the body ; 
wing-covers with a small white spot at the tips ; male with the 



152 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

face and the edges of the lateral margins of the thorax yellow. 
Length from -^^ to y\ of an inch. 

This species was first described by Mr. Say under the name of 
Acrydium laterale*. I have taken it from the middle of April to 
the middle of May. It varies in being darker above sometimes. 

7. Tetrix parvipennis. Small-winged grouse-locust. 

Dark brown ; sides blackish ; thorax clay-colored or pale brown, 
about as long as the body ; wing-covers with a small white spot 
at the tips ; wings much shorter than the thorax ; male with the 
face and the edges of the lateral margins of the thorax yellow- 
Length from -^Q to more than -^\ inch. 

This species is much shorter and thicker than the Tetrix late- 
ralis. I have taken it in April and May, in the perfect state, and 
have found the pupae near the end of July. 

The habits of the grouse-locusts are said to be absolutely the 
same as those of other locusts. They seem however to be more 
fond of heat, being generally found in grassy places, on banks, by 
the sides of the road, and even on the naked sands, exposed to 
the full influence of the sun throughout the day. They are ex- 
tremely agile, and consequently very difficult to capture, for they 
leap to an astonishing distance, considering their small size, being 
moreover aided in this motion by their ample wings. The young, 
which are deprived of wings, are generally found about midsum- 
mer, and are readily distinguished by the thorax, which is some- 
what like a reversed boat, being furnished with a longitudinal 
ridge or keel from one end to the other. These little locusts are 
analogous to the insects belonging to the genus Membracis in the 
order Hemiptera, which also are distinguished by a very large 
thorax covering the whole of the upper side of the body, small 
wing-covers, and have the faculty of making great leaps. Indeed 
these two kinds of insects very naturally connect the orders Or- 
thoptera and Hemiptera together. 

After so much space has been devoted to an account of the 
ravages of grasshoppers and locusts, and to the descriptions of the 
insects themselves, perhaps it may be expected that the means of 

* American Entomology. Vol. I. plate 5. 



ORTHOPTERA. 153 

checking and destroying them should be fully explained. The 
naturalist, however, seldom has it in his power to put in practice 
the various remedies which his knowledge or experience may 
suggest. His proper province consists in examining the living 
objects about him with regard to their structure, their scientific 
arrangement, and their economy or history. In doing this, he 
opens to others the way to a successful course of experiments, the 
trial of which he is generally obhged to leave to those who are 
more favorably situated for their performance. 

In the South of France the people make a business, at certain 
seasons of the year, of collecting locusts and their eggs, the latter 
being turned out of the ground in little masses cemented and cov- 
ered with a sort of gum in which they are enveloped by the in- 
sects. Rewards are offered and paid for their collection, half a 
franc being given for a kilogramme (about 2 lb. 3i oz. avoirdu- 
pois) of the insects, and a quarter of a franc for the same weight 
of their eggs. At this rate twenty thousand francs were paid in 
Marseilles, and twenty-five thousand in Aries, in the year 1613 ; 
in 1824, five thousand five hundred and forty-two, and in 1825, 
six thousand two hundred francs were paid in Marseilles. It is 
stated that an active boy can collect from six to seven kilogram- 
mes (or from 13 lb. 3 oz. 13.22 dr. to 15 lb. 7 oz. 2.09 dr.) of 
eggs in one day. The locusts are taken by means of a piece of 
stout cloth, carried by four persons, two of whom draw it rapidly 
along, so that the edge may sweep over the surface of the soil, 
and the two others hold up the cloth behind at an angle of forty- 
five degrees.* This contrivance seems to operate somewhat like 
a horse-rake, in gathering the insects into winrows or heaps, from 
which they are speedily transferred to large sacks. A somewhat 
similar plan has been successfully tried in this country, as appears 
by an account extracted from the " Portsmouth Journal," and pub- 
lished in the " New-England Farmer. f" It is there stated that, in 
July 1826, Mr. Arnold Thompson, of Epsom, New Hampshire, 
caught, in one evening, between the hours of eight and twelve, in 
his own and his neighbour's grain fields, five bushels and three 



* See Annales de la Societe Entornologique de France. Vol. II. pp. 486-489. 
t Vol. V. p. 5. 

20 



154 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

pecks of grasshoppers, or more properly locusts. " His mode of 
catching them was by attaching two sheets together, and fastening 
them to a pole, which was used as the front part of the drag. 
The pole extended beyond the width of the sheets, so as to admit 
persons at both sides to draw it forward. At the sides of the 
drag, braces extended from the pole to raise the back part consid- 
erably from the ground, so that the grasshoppers could not es- 
cape. After running the drag about a dozen rods with rapidity, 
the braces were taken out, and the sheets doubled over ; the 
grasshoppers were then swept from each end towards the centre 
of the sheet, vv^here was left an opening to the mouth of a bag 
which held about half a bushel ; when deposited and tied up, the 
drag was again opened and ready to proceed. When this bag 
was filled so as to become burthensome, (their weight is about 
the same as that of the same measure of corn,) the bag was open- 
ed into a larger one, and the grasshoppers received into a new 
deposit. The drag can be used only in the evening, when the 
grasshoppers are perched on the top of the grain. His manner of 
destroying them was by dipping the large bags into a kettle of 
boiling water. When boiled, they had a reddish appearance, and 
made a fine feast for the farmer's hogs." When these insects are 
very prevalent on our salt marshes, it will be advisable to mow 
the grass early, so as to secure a crop before it has suffered much 
loss. The time for doing this will be determined by data fur- 
nished in the foregoing pages, where it will be seen that the most 
destructive species come to maturity during the latter part of 
July. If then, the marshes are mowed about the first of July, the 
locusts, being at that time small and not provided with wings, will 
be unable to migrate, and will consequently perish on the ground 
for the want of food, while a tolerable crop of hay will be secured, 
and the marshes will suffer less from the insects during the follow- 
ing summer. This, like all other preventive measures, must be 
generally adopted, in order to prove effectual ; for it will avail a 
farmer but little to take preventive measures on his own land, if 
his neighbours, who are equally exposed and interested, neglect 
to do the same. Among the natural means which seem to be 
appointed to keep these insects in check, violent winds and 
storms may be mentioned, which sometimes sweep them off in 



ORTHOPTERA. 165 

great swarms, and cast them into the sea. Vast numbers are 
drowned by the high tides that frequently inundate our marshes. 
They are subject to be attacked by certain thread-hke brown or 
blackish worms {FiJaria), resembling in appearance those called 
horse-hair eels (^Gordius). I have taken three or four of these 
animals out of the body of a single locust. They are also much 
infested by little red mites, belonging apparently to the genus 
Ocijpcte ; these so much weaken the insects by sucking the juices 
from their bodies, as to hasten their death. Ten or a dozen of 
these mites will frequently be found pertinaciously adhering to the 
body of a locust, beneath its wing-covers and wings. A kind of 
sand-wasp preys upon grasshoppers, and provisions her nest with 
them. Many birds devour them, particularly our domestic fowls, 
which eat great numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, and even 
crickets. Young turkeys, if allowed to go at large during the 
summer, derive nearly the whole of their subsistence from these 
insects. 



156 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



HEMIPTERA. 

Bugs. — Squash-Bug. Plant-Bugs. — Harvest-Flies. — Tree-Hoppers. — 
Leaf-Hoppers. Vine-Hopper. Bean-Hopper. — Thrips. — Plant-Lice. 
American Blight. — Enemies of Plant-Lice. — Bark-Lice. 

The word bug seems originally to have been used for any 
frightful object, whether real or imaginary, whose appearance was 
to be feared at night. It was applied in the same sense as bug- 
bear, and also as a term of contempt for something disagreeable 
or hateful. In later times it became, with the common people, a 
general name for insects, which, being little known, were viewed 
with dislike or terror. At present, however, we can say, with 
L'Estrange, though "we have a horror for uncouth monsters, 
upon experience all these bugs grow familiar and easy to us." 
We would except, from this remark, those domestic nocturnal 
species to which the name is now applied by way of preemi- 
nence ; the real, by an easy transition in the use of language, 
having assumed the name of the imaginary objects of terror and 
disgust by night. 

Entomologists now use the vi^ord bug for various kinds of in- 
sects, all, like the bed-bug, having the mouth provided with a 
slender beak, which, when not in use, is bent under the body, and 
lies upon the breast between the legs. This instrument consists 
of a horny sheath, containing, in a groove along its upper surface, 
three stiff bristles as sharp as needles. Bugs have no jaws, but 
live by sucking the juices of animals and plants, which they obtain 
by piercing them with their beaks. Although the domestic kinds 
above mentioned are without wing-covers and wings, yet most 
bugs have both, and, with the former, belong to an order called 
Hemiptera, literally half-wings, on account of the peculiar con- 
struction of their wing-covers, the hinder half of which is thin and 
filmy like the wings, while the forepart is thick and opake. 
There are, however, other insects provided with the same kind of 
beak, but having the wing-covers sometimes entirely transparent, 
and sometimes more or less opake, and these, by most entomolo- 
gists, are also classed among Hemipterous insects, because they 



HEMIPTERA. 157 

come much nearer to them, than to any other insects, in structure 
and habits. Bugs, hke other insects, undergo three changes, but 
they retain nearly the same form in all their stages ; for the only 
^transformation to which they are subject, from the young to the 
adult state, is occasioned by the gradual development of their 
wing-covers and wings, and the growth of their bodies, which 
make it necessary for them repeatedly to throw off their skins, to 
allow of their increase in size. Young, half-grown, and mature, 
all live in the same way, and all are equally active. The young 
come forth from the egg without wing-covers and wings, which 
begin to appear in the form of little scales on the top of their 
backs as they grow older, and increase in size with each succes- 
sive moulting of the skin, till they are fully developed in the full- 
grown insect. 

The Hemiptera are divided into two groups, distinguished by 
the following characters. 

1. Bugs, or True Hemiptera {Hemiptera heteroptera) , in 
which the wing-covers are thick and opake at the base, but thin 
and more or less transparent and wing-like at the tips, are laid hor- 
izontally on the top of the back, and cross each other obliquely at 
the end, so that the thin part of one wing-cover overlaps the 
same part of the other ; the wings are also horizontal, and are not 
plaited ; the head is more or less horizontal, and the beak issues 
from the forepart of it, and is abruptly bent backwards beneath 
the under-side of the head, and the breast. Some of the insects 
belonging to this division live on animal, and others on vegetable 
juices. 

2. Harvest-flies, Plant-lice, and Bark-lice (Hemip- 
tera homoptera), in which the wing-covers are, as the scientific 
name implies, of one texture throughout, and are either entirely 
thin and transparent, like wings, or somewhat thicker and opake; 
they are not horizontal, and do not cross each other at their ex- 
tremities, but, together with the wings, are more or less inclined 
at the sides of the body, like the wing-covers of locusts ; the face 
is either vertical, or slopes obliquely under the body, so that the 
beak issues from the under-side of the head close to the breast. 
All the insects included in this division, live on vegetable 
juices. 



158 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

I. BUGS. [Hemiptera heteroptera.) 

The hemipterous insects belonging to this division are various 
kinds of bugs, properly so called, such as squash-bugs, bed-bugs, 
fruit-bugs, water-bugs, water-boatmen, and many others, for which 
there are no common names in our language. In my Catalogue 
of the Insects of Massachusetts, the scientific names of ninety-five 
native species are given ; but, as the mere description of these 
insects, unaccompanied by any details respecting their economy 
and habits, would not interest the majority of readers, and as I 
am not sufficiently prepared to furnish these details at present, I 
shall confine my remarks to two or three species only. 

The common squash-bug, Coreus tristis, so well known for the 
injurious effects of its punctures on the leaves of squashes, is one 
of the most remarkable of these insects. It was first described by 
De Geer, who gave it the specific name of tristis, from its sober 
color, which Gmelin unwarrantably changed to mcestus, having, 
however, the same meaning. Fabricius called it Coreus rugator, 
the latter word signifying one who wrinkles, which was probably 
applied to this insect, because its punctures cause the leaves of 
the squash to become wrinkled. Mr. Say, not being aware that 
this insect had already been three times named and described, re- 
described it under the name of Coreus ordinaius. Of these four 
names, however, that of tristis, being the first, is the only one 
which it can retain. Coreus, its generical name, was altered by 
Fabricius from Coris^ a word used by the Greeks for some kind 
of bug. About the last of October squash-bugs desert the plants 
upon which they have lived during the summer, and conceal them- 
selves in crevices of walls and fences, and other places of security, 
where they pass the winter in a torpid state. On the return of 
warm weather, they issue from their winter quarters, and when 
the vines of the squash have put forth a few rough leaves, the 
bugs meet beneath their shelter, pair, and immediately afterwards 
begin to lay their eggs. This usually happens about the last of 
June or beginning of .luly, at which time, by carefully examining 
the vines, we shall find the insects on the ground or on the stems 
of the vines, close to the ground, from which they are hardly to 
be distinguished on account of their dusky color. This is the 



HEMIPTERA. 159 

place where they generally remain during the daytime, appar- 
ently to escape observation ; but at night they leave the ground, 
get beneath the leaves, and lay their eggs in little patches, fasten- 
ing them with a gummy substance to the under-sides of the leaves. 
The eggs are round, and flattened on two sides, and are soon 
hatched. The young bugs are proportionally shorter and more 
rounded than the perfect insects, are of a pale ash-color, and have 
quite large antennae, the joints of which are somewhat flattened. 
As they grow older and increase in size, after moulting their skins 
a few times, they become more oval in form, and the under-side 
of their bodies gradually acquires a dull ochre-yellow color. 
They live together at first in little swarms or families beneath the 
leaves upon which they were hatched, and which, in consequence 
of the numerous punctures of the insects, and the quantity of sap 
imbibed by them, soon wither, and eventually become brown, 
dry, and wrinkled ; when the insects leave them for fresh leaves, 
which they exhaust in the same way. As the eggs are not all 
laid at one time, so the bugs are hatched in successive broods, 
and consequently will be found in various stages of growth 
through the summer. They, however, attain their full size, pass 
through their last transformation, and appear in their perfect state, 
or furnished with wing-covers and wings, during the months of 
September and October. In this last state the squash-bug meas- 
ures six tenths of an inch in length. It is of a rusty black color 
above, and of a dirty ochre-yellow color beneath, and the sharp 
lateral edges of the abdomen, which project beyond the closed 
wing-covers, are spotted with ochre-yellow. The thin overlap- 
ping portion of the wing-covers is black ; the wings are transpar- 
ent, but are dusky at their tips ; and the upper side of the abdo- 
men, upon which the wings rest when not in use, is of a deep 
black color, and velvety appearance. The ground-color of this 
insect is really ochre-yellow, and the rusty black hue of the head, 
thorax, thick part of the wing-covers, and legs, is occasioned by 
numerous black punctures, that, on the head, are arranged in two 
broad black longitudinal lines, between which, as well as on the 
margin of the thorax, the yellow is distinctly to be seen. On the 
back-part of the head of this bug, and rather behind the eyes, are 
two little glassy elevated spots, which are called eyelets, and 



160 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

which are supposed to enable the insect to see distant objects 
above it, while the larger eyes at the sides of the head are for 
nearer objects around it. Eyelets are also to be found in grass- 
hoppers, locusts, and many other insects. In some of our species 
of Coreus there is a little thorn at the base of the antennae, the 
legs are also thorny on the under-side, and the hindmost thighs 
are much thicker than the others ; but none of these characters 
are found in squash-bugs*. When handled, and still more when 
crushed, the latter give out an odor precisely similar to that of an 
over-ripe pear, but far too powerful to be agreeable. 

In order to prevent the ravages of these insects, they should be 
sought and killed when they are about to lay their eggs ; and if 
any escape our observation at this time, their eggs may be easily 
found and crushed. With this view the squash-vines must be 
visited daily, during the early part of their growth, and must be 
carefully examined for the bugs and their eggs. A very short 
time spent in this way every day, in the proper season, will save 
a great deal of vexation and disappointment afterwards. If this 
precaution be neglected or deferred till the vines have begun to 
spread, it will be exceedingly difficult to exterminate the insects, 
on account of their numbers ; and, if at this time dry weather 
should prevail, the vines will suffer so much from the bugs and 
drought together, as to produce but little if any fruit. Whatever 
contributes to bring forward the plants rapidly, and to promote the 
vigor and luxuriance of their foliage, renders them less liable to 
suffer by the exhausting punctures of the young bugs. Water 
drained from a cow-yard, and similar preparations have, with this 
intent, been applied with benefit. 

During the summer of 1838, and particularly in the early part 
of the season, which, it will be recollected, was very dry, our 
gardens and fields swarmed with immense numbers of little bugs, 
that attacked almost all kinds of herbaceous plants. My attention 
was first drawn to them in consequence of the injury sustained by 
a few dahlias, marigolds, asters, and balsams with which I had 
stocked a little border around my house. In the garden of my 
friends the Messrs. Hovey, at Cambridgeport, I observed, about 

* They appear to belong to the sub-genus Syromastes of Latreille and Laporte. 



HEMIPTERA. 161 

the same time, that these insects were committing sad havoc, and 
was informed that various means had been tried to destroy or ex- 
pel them without effect. On visiting my potato-patch shortly 
afterwards, I found the insects there also In great numbers on the 
vines ; and, from information worthy of credit, am inclined to be- 
lieve that these insects contributed, quite as much as the dry 
weather of that season, to diminish the produce of the potato 
fields in this vicinity. They principally attacked the buds, ter- 
minal shoots, and most succulent growing parts of these and other 
herbaceous plants, puncturing them with their beaks, drawing off 
the sap, and, from the effects subsequently visible, apparently 
poisoning the parts attacked. These shortly afterwards withered, 
turned black, and in a few days dried up ; or curled, and remained 
permanently stunted in their growth. Early in the morning the 
bugs would be found buried among the little expanding leaves of 
the growing extremities of the plants, at which time it was not 
very difficult to catch them ; but, after they had become warmed 
a little by the sun, they became exceedingly active, and, on the 
approach of the fingers, would loose their hold, and either drop 
suddenly or fly away. Sometimes, too, when on the stem of a 
plant, they would dodge round to the other side, and thus elude 
our grasp. 1 regret that the pressure of other occupations, during 
the proper season for investigating the history and transforma- 
tions of these insects, has hitherto prevented me from observing 
them during their various stages, and that I have not been able to 
obtain the requisite information from other persons. I can there- 
fore only add, to the facts above stated, a description of the 
insects in their adult state, with the times of their appearance. 

This kind of bug is the Phytocoris lineolaris, a variety of 
which was first described and figured by Pahsot de Beauvois un- 
der the specific name above given, and was doubtingly referred by 
him to the genus Coreus ; and it was subsequently described by 
Mr. Say, who called it Capsus oblineatus. All the insects be- 
longing to the genus Phytocoris* (which means plant-bug) are 

* This new genus or sub-genus was instituted by Fallen, and is not noticed by 
Latreille and Laporte. It differs from Capsus chiefly in having a smaller head, 
and the thorax wider behind, and narrower before, than in the latter genus. 

21 



162 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

found on plants, and subsist on their juices, which they obtain by- 
suction through their sharp beaks. They are easily distinguished 
from other bugs by the following characters. Eyelets wanting ; 
antennae four-jointed, with the first and second joints much thicker 
than the two last, which are very slender and threadlike ; the 
head short and triangular ; the body oval, flattened, and soft ; the 
thorax in the form of a broad triangle, with the tip of the anterior 
angle cut off, and the broadest side applied to the base of the 
wing-covers ; the latter, when folded, cover the whole of the ab- 
domen, and their thin portions have only one or two little veins ; 
the legs are slender, and the shanks are bristled with little points. 
There are, in this Commonwealth, a good many species belonging 
to this genus ; but, in my Catalogue of the insects of Massachu- 
setts, they are included among the species of Capsus, which, 
indeed, they closely resemble. The Phytocoris lineolaris, or 
little-lined plant-bug, measures one fifth of an inch, or rather 
more, in length. It is an exceedingly variable species. The 
males are generally much darker than the females, being very 
deep livid brown or almost black above. The head is yellowish, 
with three narrow longitudinal reddish stripes ; the first joint of 
the antennae, the terminal half of the second, and the last two 
joints are blackish ; the beak is more than one third the whole 
length of the body, when folded beneath the breast, extends to 
the middle pair of legs, and is of a yellowish color, ringed with 
black ; the thorax, or that part of the body that comes immedi- 
ately behind the head, is thickly covered with punctures, has a 
yellow margin, and five longitudinal yellow lines upon it, which 
often disappear on the back part; the scutel, or escutcheon, a 
small triangular piece behind the thorax, and interposed between 
the bases of the wing-covers, is also margined with yellow, and 
has a yellow spot upon it in the form of the letter V, which is 
often imperfect, so that only three small yellow spots are visible 
in the place of the three extremities of the letter ; the thick part 
of the wing-covers is brown, with the outer edge and the longitu- 
dinal veins sometimes pale or yellowish, and behind this thick 
part there is a large yellowish spot, on the posterior tip of which 
is a small black point ; the thin or membranous part of the wing- 
covers is shaded with dusky clouds ; the under-side of the body is 



HEMIPTERA. 163 

marked with a yellowish Hne or a longitudinal series of yellow 
spots on each side of the middle ; the legs are dirty brownish yel- 
low, the thighs blackish at base, and with two black rings near the 
tip, and the extremities of the feet are blackish. The females are 
most often of a pale olive-green, or of a dirty greenish yellow 
color ; the thorax spotted and more or less distinctly striped with 
black, and the thick part of the wing-covers also variegated with 
dusky or brownish lines and clouds. In both sexes, however, the 
yellow V, or the three spots on the thorax, and the large yellow 
spot tipped with black on the wing-covers, are conspicuous char- 
acters, which readily afford the means of identifying the species*. 
I have taken this insect in the spring, as early as the twentieth of 
April, and in the autumn, as late as the middle of October ; from 
which I infer that it passes the winter in the perfect state in some 
place of security. It is most abundant during the months of June 
and July. Specimens have been sent to me from Maine, New 
York, North Carolina, and Alabama, and Mr. Say records its 
occurrence in Pennsylvania, Indiana, the North-West Territory, 
and Missouri. It seems, therefore, to be very generally diffused 
throughout the Union. 

The history of this species is yet imperfect. We know not 
where and when the eggs are laid ; the young have not been ob- 
served ; and the insects, during the early periods of their exist- 
ence, have escaped notice, and are only known to us after they 
have completed their final transformations. It is possible that 
further information upon the history of these insects may afford 
some aid in devising proper remedies against their ravages. Upon 
a limited scale, as on plants growing in our gardens, may be tried 
the effect of sprinkling them with alkaline solutions, such as strong 
soap-suds, or potash-water, or with decoctions of tobacco and 
of walnut leaves, or of dusting the plants with air-slacked lime or 
sulphur. But in field husbandry such* applications would be im- 



* This species bears a very close resemblance to one which I have received 
from Sweden, under the name of Phytocoris campestris of Linnasus and Fallen; 
but it is larger and proportionally broader, the punctures of the thorax are deeper, 
and the yellow spot on the wing-covers is much more conspicuous than in the 
Swedish co-species. My description of Phytocoris Hneolaris, was drawn up from 
living specimens. They fade very much after death. 



164 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

practicable. I am inclined to believe that nothing will prove so 
effectual as thorough irrigation, or copious and frequent showers 
of rain, which will bring forward the plants with such rapidity, 
that they will soon become so strong and vigorous as to withstand 
the attacks of these little bugs. The great increase of these and 
other noxious insects may fairly be attributed to the exterminating 
war which has wantonly been waged upon our insect-eating birds, 
and we may expect the evil to increase unless these little friends 
of the farmer are protected, or left undisturbed to multiply, 
and follow their natural habits. Meanwhile, some advantage 
may be derived from encouraging the breed of our domestic 
fowls. A flock of young chickens or turkeys, if suffered to go 
at large in a garden, while the mother is confined within their 
sight and hearing, under a suitable crate or cage, will devour great 
numbers of destructive insects ; and our farmers should be urged 
to pay more attention than heretofore to the rearing of chickens, 
young turkeys, and ducks, with a view to the benefits to be de- 
rived from their destruction of insects. 

11. HARVEST-FLIES, &c. {Hemiptera Homoptera.) 

By many entomologists this division is raised to the rank of a 
separate order, under the name of Homoptera ; but the insects 
arranged in it are, as already stated, much more like the true 
Hemiptera, or bugs, than they are to the insects in any other 
order, which shows the propriety of keeping these two divisions 
together, and that separately they hold only a subordinate impor- 
tance compared with other orders. 

The insects belonging to this division are divided by naturalists 
into three large groups, or tribes. 

1. Harvest-flies, or Cicadians (Cicadadje) ; having short an- 
tennae, which are awl-shaped or tipped with a little bristle ; wings 
and wing-covers, in both sexes, inclined at the sides of the body ; 
three joints to their feet ; firm and hard skins ; and in which the 
females have a piercer, lodged in a furrow beneath the extremity 
of the body. 

2. Plant-lice (Aphidid^); having antennae longer than the head, 
and threadlike or tapering from the root to the end ; wing-covers 



HEMIPTERA. 165 

and wings frequently wanting in the females ; feet two-jointed ; 
the body very soft, generally furnished with two httle tubercles at 
the end ; no piercer in the females. 

3, Bark-lice (Coccid^) ; having threadhke or tapering an- 
tennae, longer than the head ; the males alone provided with wings, 
which lie horizontally on the top of the back ; no beak in this 
sex ; females wingless, but furnished with beaks ; the feet with 
only one joint, terminated by a single claw ; skins tolerably firm 
and hard ; two slender threads at the extremity of the body ; no 
piercer in the females. 

I. Harvest-flies. (Cicadadce.) 

The most remarkable insects in this group are those to which 
naturalists now apply the name of Cicada. They are readily 
distinguished by their broad heads, the large and very convex 
eyes on each side, and the three eyelets on the crown ; by the 
transparent and veined wing-covers and wings ; and by the eleva- 
tion on the back part of the thorax in the form of the letter X. 
The males have a peculiar organization which enables them to 
emit an excessively loud buzzing kind of sound, which, in some 
species, may be heard at the distance of a mile ; and the females 
are furnished with a curiously contrived piercer, for perforating 
the limbs of trees, in which they place their eggs. Without 
attempting a detailed description of the complicated mechanism 
of these parts, which could only be made intelligible by means 
of figures, I shall merely give a brief and general account of them, 
which may suffice for the present occasion. The musical instru- 
ments of the male consist of a pair of kettle-drums, one on each 
side of the body, and these, in the seventeen-year Cicada (or lo- 
cust as it is generally but improperly called in America), are 
plainly to be seen just behind the wings. These drums are 
formed of convex pieces of parchment, covered with numerous 
fine plaits, and, in the species above named, are lodged in cavi- 
ties on the sides of the body behind the thorax. They are not 
played upon with sticks, but by muscles or cords fastened to the 
inside of the drums. When these muscles contract and relax, 
which they do with great rapidity, the drum-heads are alternately 
tightened and loosened, recovering their natural convexity by their 



166 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

own elasticity. The effect of this rapid ahernate tension and re- 
laxation is the production of a rattling sound, like that caused by 
a succession of quick pressures upon a slightly convex and elastic 
piece of tin plate. Certain cavities within the body of the in- 
sect, which may be seen on raising two large valves beneath the 
belly, and which are separated from each other by thin partitions 
having the transparency and brilliancy of mica or of thin and 
highly polished glass, tend to increase the vibrations of the sounds, 
and add greatly to their intensity. In most of our species of 
Cicada, the drums are not visible on the outside of the body, but 
are covered by convex triangular pieces on each side of the first 
ring behind the thorax, which must be cut away in order to ex- 
pose them. On raising the large valves of the belly, however, 
there is seen, close to each side of the body, a little opening, 
like a pocket, in which the drum is lodged, and from which the 
sound issues when the insect opens the valves. The hinder ex- 
tremity of the body of the female is conical, and the under-side 
has a longitudinal channel for the reception of the piercer, which 
is furthermore protected by four short grooved pieces fixed in the 
sides of the channel. The piercer itself consists of three parts 
in close contact with each other ; namely, two outer ones grooved 
on the inside and enlarged at the tips, which externally are beset 
with small teeth hke a saw, and a central, spear-pointed borer, 
which plays between the other two. Thus this instrument has 
the power and does the work both of an awl and of a double- 
edged saw, or rather of two key-hole saws cutting opposite to 
each other. No species of Cicada possesses the power of leap- 
ing. The legs are rather short, and the anterior thighs are armed 
beneath with two stout spines. 

The duration of life in winged insects is comparatively very 
short, seldom exceeding two or three weeks in extent, and in 
many is limited to the same number of days or hours. To in- 
crease and multiply is their principal business in this period of 
their existence, if not the only one, and the natural term of their 
life ends when this is accomphshed. In their previous states, 
however, they often pass a much longer time, the length of which 
depends, in great measure, upon the nature and abundance of their 
food. Thus maggots, which subsist upon decaying animal or 



HEMIPTERA. 167 

vegetable matter, come more quickly to their growth than cater- 
pillars and other insects which devour living plants ; the former 
are appointed to remove an offensive nuisance, and do their work 
quickly ; the latter have a longer time assigned to them, cor- 
responding in some degree to the progress or continuance of vege- 
tation. The facilities afforded for obtaining food influence the 
duration of life ; hence those grubs that live in the solid trunks of 
perennial trees, which they are obliged to perforate in order to 
obtain nourishment, are longer lived than those that devour the 
tender parts of leaves and fruits, which, though they last only for 
a season, require no laborious efforts to be prepared for food. 
The harvest-flies continue only a few weeks after their final trans- 
formation, and their only nourishment consists of vegetable juices, 
which they obtain by piercing the bark and leaves of plants with 
their beaks ; and during this period they lay their eggs, and then 
perish. They are, however, amply compensated for the short- 
ness of their life in the winged state by the length of their pre- 
vious existence, during which they are wingless and grub-like in 
form, and live under ground, where they obtain their food only by 
much labor in perforating the soil among the roots of plants, the 
juices of which they imbibe by suction. To meet the difficulties 
of their situation and the precarious supply of their food, for 
which they have to grope in the dark in their subterranean re- 
treats, a remarkable longevity is assigned to them ; and one spe- 
cies has obtained the name of Cicada septendecim, on account of 
its life being protracted to the period of seventeen years. 

This insect has been observed in the southeastern parts of 
Massachusetts, but does not seem to have extended to other parts 
of the State. The earliest account that we have of it is con- 
tained in Morton's " Memorial," wherein it is stated that "there 
was a numerous company of flies, which were like for bigness 
unto wasps or bumblebees," which appeared in Plymouth in the 
Spring of 1633. " They came out of little holes in the ground, 
and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling 
noise as made the woods ring of them, and ready to deafen the 
hearers." Judge Davis, in the Appendix to his edition of Sec- 
retary Morton's "Memorial," states that these insects appeared 
in Plymouth, Sandwich, and Falmouth in the year 1S04 ; but, if 



168 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the exact period of seventeen years was observed, they should 
have returned in 1803. Circumstances may occasionally retard 
or accelerate their progress to maturity, but the usual interval is 
certainly seventeen years, according to the observations and testi- 
mony of many persons of undoubted veracity. Their occur- 
rence in large swarms at long intervals, like that of the migratory 
locusts of the east, probably suggested the name of locusts, which 
has commonly been applied to them in this country. The fol- 
lowing extract from a letter* from the late Rev. Ezra Shaw 
Goodwin, of Sandwich, contains some interesting particulars which 
this gentleman had the kindness to communicate to me. 

" I have not been unmindful of what you said to me respecting 
the locust insects, nor of the promise I made you with respect to 
them. They appeared in this town in the year 1821, in the 
middle of June. Their last previous appearance was in 1804, 
and their last, previous to that, was in 1787. I ascertained these 
periods from the statements of individuals, who remembered that 
it was locust-year, when this or that event occurred ; as, when 
this one was married, or that one's eldest son was born ; events, 
the date of which the husband or the parent would not be very 
likely to forget. The remembrance of all, though fixed by dif- 
ferent events, concurred in establishing the same years for the ap- 
pearance of the locusts. 

" I first took notice of them in 1821, on the 17th of June, 
from their noise. They appeared chiefly in the forests, or in 
thickets of forest-trees, principally oak. Their nearest distance 
from my dwelhng cannot be far from a mile ; yet, at a still hour, 
their music was distinctly heard there. On going to visit them, 
I found the oak-trees and bushes swarming with them in a winged 
state. They came up out of the ground a creeping insect. Very 
soon, after they had arrived on the surface of the earth, the skin, 
or rather the shell of the insect burst upon the back, and the 
winged insect came forth, leaving the skin or shell upon the earth, 
in a perfect form, and uninjured, saving at the rupture on the 
back ; showing an entire withdrawing of the living animal, as much 
so as does the snake's skin after he has left it. Thus these skins 

* Dated Oct. 19, 1832. 



HEMIPTERA. 169 

lay in immense numbers under the trees, entirely empty, and per- 
fect in shape. The winged insects did not, so far as I could as- 
certain, eat any thing. Motion and propagation appeared to be 
the whole object of their existence. They continued about four 
or five weeks, and then died." Previous to this event " the 
females laid their eggs in the tender parts of oak branches, near 
the extremities, making a longitudinal furrow, and depositing rows 
of eggs therein. They then sawed the branch partly off below 
the eggs, so that the wind could twist off the extreme part con- 
taining the eggs, and let it fall to the ground. In this way they 
injured the trees extensively. The forest had a gloomy appear- 
ance from the number of these extremities partially twisted off, 
and hanging, with their dead leaves, ready to fall. In a few weeks 
they were nearly all separated from the trees, and carried their 
vital burdens to the earth, which was, certainly, well seeded for a 
harvest in 1838. I know of no other damage which they did." 
" I believe the locusts appear in different places, in different 
years, and understand that the locust-year, in some places not far 
distant, is different from their year in this town." This letter 
was accompanied by specimens of the insects, in their various 
states, obtained and preserved by Mr. Goodwin. 

The writer of an article in the " Boston Magazine " for Novem- 
ber, 1784, observes that Mr. Morton must have been mistaken as 
to these insects, in saying that they eat up the green things, which, 
from the structure of their mouths, we now know could not have 
been the case. This writer also records the appearance of these 
insects in 1784, and the place of his residence, in which this oc- 
curred, is believed to have been in the County of Bristol ; which 
coincides with the remark made by Mr. Goodwin, that in different 
places they appear in different years. This remark is further- 
more confirmed by the observations of various persons* who 

* Among the authorities which I have consulted upon the history of the 
17-year Cicada, may be mentioned the Rev. Andrew Sandel, of Philadelphia, an 
abstract of whose account is given in the 4th vol. of Mitchill and Miller's " Medical 
Repository," p. 71; the " Columbian Magazine," vol. 1, pages 8G and 108; Mr. 
Moses Bartram's account in Dodsley's " Annual Register " for 1767, p. 103; Dr. 
McMurtrie, in the 8th vol. of the " Encyclopaedia Americana," p. 43 ; Dr. S. P. 
Hildreth's interesting account in the 10th vol. of Silliman's " American Journal of 

22 



170 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

have published accounts of the occurrence of these insects in the 
Middle, Southern, and Western States, where, at regular inter- 
vals of seventeen years, varying according to the locality, they 
are seen even in greater abundance than in Massachusetts. The 
following dates and places of their ascent are given in Professor 
Potter's "Notes on the Locusta decern Septima" (Cicada sep- 
tendecim) ; Maryland, 1749, 1766, 1783, 1800, 1817, 1834 ; 
South Carohna and Georgia 1817, 1834 ; Middlesex County, 
New Jersey, 1826 ; Louisiana, 1829 ; Gallipohs, Ohio, 1821, 
and Muskingum, 1829 : western parts of Pennsylvania, 1832 ; 
Fall-River, Massachusetts, 1834. To these may be added from 
other sources, Pennsylvania, 1715, 1766, 1783, 1800, 1817;* 
Marietta, Ohio, 1795, 1812 ; Plymouth, 1633, 1804 ; Sandwich, 
1787, 1804, 1821 ; Genesee County, New York, 1832; Mar- 
tha's Vineyard, 1833. From information derived from various 
sources it appears that this species is widely spread over the coun- 
try, with the exception only of the northern parts of New Eng- 
land ; and that it may be seen in some portion of the United 
States almost every year ; and, although certain disturbing causes 
may occasionally accelerate or retard the return of individuals, or 
even of an entire swarm, in any one place, yet the lineal descen- 
dants of one particular family or swarm will ordinarily come forth 
only once in seventeen years, while those of other swarms may 
appear, after equally regular intervals, in the intervening period, 
in other places. 

The seventeen-year Cicada (Cicada septendecim of Linnaeus), 
in the winged state, is of a black color, with transparent wings 
and wing-covers, the thick anterior edge and larger veins of which 

Science," p. 327 ; and a pamphlet entitled " Notes on the Locusta," &c., with 
which I have been favored by the author, Professor Nathaniel Potter, of Baltimore. 
This last work is exclusively devoted to the history of this insect, and has aflbrded 
me much valuable information. From these various sources I have selected the 
principal facts which follow. Mr. Collinson's " Observations on the Cicada of 
North America," published in the "Philosophical Transactions " of London, vol. 54, 
p. 65, with a plate, probably refer to the seventeen-year Cicada, but the insects 
fio-ured are not the same, and seem to be the Cicada ■pruinosa of Mr. Say. 

* A writer in the " United States Gazette " records the appearance of these in- 
sects in great numbers in Germantovvn, Pennsylvania, on the 25th of May, at four 
successive periods. 



HEMIPTERA. 171 

are orange-red, and near the tips of the latter there is a dusky 
zigzag line in the form of the letter W ; the eyes when living are 
also red ; the rings of the body are edged with dull orange ; and 
the legs are of the same color. The wings expand from 2| to 
3| inches. 

In those parts of Massachusetts which are subject to the visita- 
tion of this Cicada, it may be seen in forests of oak about the 
middle of June. Here such immense numbers are sometimes 
congregated, as to bend and even break down the limbs of the 
trees by their weight, and the woods resound with the din of their 
discordant drums from morning to evening. After pairing, the 
females proceed to prepare a nest for the reception of their eggs. 
They select, for this purpose, branches of a moderate size, which 
they clasp on both sides with their legs, and then bending down 
the piercer at an angle of about forty-five degrees, they repeatedly 
thrust it obliquely into the bark and wood in the direction of the 
fibres, at the same time putting in motion the lateral saws, and in 
this way detach little splinters of the wood at one end, so as to 
form a kind of fibrous lid or cover to the perforation. The hole 
is bored obliquely to the pith, and is gradually enlarged by a rep- 
etition of the same operation, till a longitudinal fissure is formed 
of sufficient extent to receive from ten to twenty eggs. The side- 
pieces of the piercer serve as a groove to convey the eggs into 
the nest, where they are deposited in pairs, side by side, but 
separated from each other by a portion of woody fibre, and they 
are implanted into the limb somewhat obliquely, so that one end 
points upwards. When two eggs have been thus placed, the 
insect withdraws the piercer for a moment, and then inserts it 
again and drops two more eggs in a line with the first, and repeats 
the operation till she has filled the fissure from one end to the 
other, upon which she removes to a little distance, and begins to 
make another nest to contain two more rows of eggs. She is 
about fifteen minutes in preparing a single nest and filling it with 
eggs ; but it is not unusual for her to make fifteen or twenty 
fissures in the same limb ; and one observer counted fifty nests 
extending along in a line, each containing fifteen or twenty eggs 
in two rows, and all of them apparently the work of one insect. 
After one limb is thus sufficiently stocked, the Cicada goes to 



172 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

another, and passes from limb to limb and from tree to tree, till her 
store, which consists of four or five hundred eggs, is exhausted. 
At length she becomes so weak by her incessant labors to pro- 
vide for a succession of her kind, as to falter and fall in attempt- 
ing to fly, and soon dies. 

Although the Cicadas abound most upon the oak, they resort 
occasionally to other forest-trees and even to shrubs, when im- 
pelled by the necessity for depositing their eggs, and not unfre- 
quently commit them to fruit-trees, when the latter are in their 
vicinity. Indeed there seem to be no trees or shrubs that are 
exempted from their attacks, except those of the pine and fir 
tribes, and of these even the white cedar is sometimes invaded 
by them. The punctured limbs languish and die soon after the 
eggs which were placed in them are hatched ; they are broken by 
the winds or by their own weight, and either remain hanging by 
the bark alone, or fall with their withered foliage to the ground. 
In this way orchards have suffered severely in consequence of the 
injurious punctures of these insects. 

The eggs are one twelfth of an inch long, and one sixteenth of 
an inch through the middle, but taper at each end to an obtuse 
point, and are of a pearl-white color. The shell is so thin and 
delicate that the form of the included insect can be seen before 
the egg is hatched, which occurs, according to Dr. Potter, in 
fifty-two days after it is laid, but other persons say in fourteen 
days. 

The young insect when it bursts the shell is one sixteenth of 
an inch long, and is of a yellowish white color, except the eyes 
and the claws of the fore-legs, which are reddish ; and it is covered 
with little hairs. In form it is somewhat grub-like, being longer 
in proportion than the parent insect, and is furnished with six legs, 
the first pair of which are very large, shaped almost like lobster- 
claws, and armed with strong spines beneath. On the shoulders 
are little prominences in the place of wings ; and under the breast 
is a long beak for suction. These little creatures when liberated 
from the shell are very lively, and their movements are nearly as 
quick as those of ants. After a few moments their instincts 
prornpt them to get to the ground, but in order to reach it they 
do not descend the body of the tree, neither do they cast off 



HEMIPTERA. 173 

themselves precipitately ; but running to the side of the limb, 
they deliberately loosen their hold, and fall to the earth. It 
seems, then, that they are not borne to the ground in the egg state 
by the limbs in which their nests are contained, but spontaneously 
make the perilous descent, immediately after they are hatched, 
without any clue, like that of the canker-worm, to carry them in 
safety through the air and break the force of their fall. The in- 
stinct which impels them thus fearlessly to precipitate themselves 
from the trees, from heights of which they can have formed 
no conception, without any experience or knowledge of the re- 
sult of their adventurous leap, is still more remarkable than that 
which carries the gosling to the water as soon as it is hatched. In 
those actions, that are the result of foresight, of memory, or of 
experience, animals are controlled by their own reason, as in those 
to which they are led by the use of their ordinary senses or by 
the indulgence of their common appetites they may be said to be 
governed by the laws of their organization ; but in such as arise 
from special and extraordinary instincts, we see the most striking 
proofs of that creative wisdom which has implanted in them an 
unerring guide, where reason, the senses, and the appetites would 
fail to direct them. The manner of the young cicadas' descent, 
so difierent from that of other insects, and seeming to require a 
special instinct to this end, would be considered incredible per- 
haps, if it had not been ascertained and repeatedly confirmed by 
persons who have witnessed the proceeding. On reaching the 
ground the insects immediately bury themselves in the soil, bur- 
rowing by means of their broad and strong fore-feet, which, like 
those of the mole, are admirably adapted for digging. In their 
descent into the earth they seem to follow the roots of plants, and 
are subsequently found attached to those which are most tender 
and succulent, perforating them with their beaks, and thus imbib- 
ing the vegetable juices which constitute their sole nourishment. 
They do not appear ordinarily to descend very deeply into the 
ground, but remain where roots are most abundant ; and it is 
probable that the accounts of their having been discovered ten or 
twelve feet from the top of the ground have been founded on 
some mistake, or the occurrence of the insects at such a depth 
may have been the result of accident. The only alteration to 



174 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

which the insects are subject, during the long period of their sub- 
terranean confinement, is an increase of size, and the more com- 
plete development of the four small scale-like prominences on 
their backs, which represent and actually contain their future 
wings. 

As the time of their transformation approaches, they gradually 
ascend towards the surface, making in their progress cylindrical 
passages, oftentimes very circuitous, and seldom exactly perpen- 
dicular, the sides of which, according to Dr. Potter, are firmly 
cemented and varnished so as to be water-proof. These burrows 
are about five eighths of an inch in diameter, are filled below with 
earthy matter removed by the insect in its progress, and can be 
traced by the color and compactness of their contents to the depth 
of from one to two feet, according to the nature of the soil ; but 
the upper portion to the extent of six or eight inches is empty, 
and serves as a habitation for the insect till the period for its exit 
arrives. Here it remains during several days, ascending to the 
top of the hole in fine weather for the benefit of the warmth and 
the air, and occasionally peeping forth apparently to reconnoitre, 
but descending again on the occurrence of cold or wet weather. 

During their temporary residence in these burrows near the 
surface, the Cicada grubs, or more properly pupEe, for such they 
are to be considered at this period, though they still retain some- 
thing of a grub-like form, acquire strength for further efforts by 
exposure to the light and air, and seem then only to wait for a 
favorable moment to issue from their subterranean retreats. When 
at length this arrives, they issue from the ground in great numbers 
in the night, crawl up the trunks of trees, or upon any other ob- 
ject in their vicinity to which they can fasten themselves securely 
by their claws. After having rested awhile they prepare to cast 
off their skins, which, in the mean time, have become dry and of 
an amber color. By repeated exertions a longitudinal rent is 
made in the skin of the back, and through this the included Ci- 
cada pushes its head and body, and withdraws its wings and limbs 
from their separate cases, and, crawling to a little distance, it 
leaves its empty pupa-skin, apparently entire, still fastened to the 
tree. At first the wing-covers and wings are very small and 
opake, but, being perfectly soft and flexible, they soon stretch 



HEMIPTERA. 175 

out to their full dimensions, and in the course of a few hours the 
superfluous moisture of the body evaporates, and the insect be- 
comes strong enough to fly. 

During several successive nights the pupae continue to issue 
from the earth ; above fifteen hundred have been found to arise 
beneath a single apple tree, and in some places the whole surface 
of the soil, by their successive operations, has appeared as full of 
holes as a honeycomb. In Alabama the species under considera- 
tion leaves the ground in February and March, in Maryland and 
Pennsylvania in May, but in Massachusetts it does not come forth 
till near the middle of June. Within about a fortnight after their 
final transformation they begin to lay their eggs, and in the space 
of six weeks the whole generation becomes extinct. 

Fortunately these insects are appointed to return only at periods 
so distant that vegetation often has time to recover from the injury 
inflicted by them ; but were they to appear at shorter intervals, 
our forest and fruit trees would soon be entirely destroyed by 
them. They are moreover subject to many accidents, and have 
many enemies, which contribute to diminish their numbers. 
Their eggs are eaten by birds ; the young, when they first issue 
from the shell, are preyed upon by ants, which mount the trees to 
feed upon them, or destroy them when they are about to enter the 
ground. Blackbirds eat them when turned up by the plough in 
fields, and hogs are excessively fond of them, and, when suffered 
to go at large in the woods, root them up, and devour immense 
numbers just before the arrival of the period of their final trans- 
formation, when they are lodged immediately under the surface of 
the soil. It is stated that many perish in the egg state, by the 
rapid growth of the bark and wood, which closes the perforations 
and buries the eggs before they have hatched ; and many, without 
doubt, are killed by their perilous descent from the trees. 

There are several other harvest-flies in the United States, the 
males of which are musical ; but their drums are concealed 
within little cavities in the sides of the first abdominal ring. One 
of these is found in Massachusetts, and, though it never appears in 
such great numbers as the preceding species, it is more common 
or more generally met with throughout the State. It may be 
called the dog-day harvest-fly, or Cicada canicularis, from the 



176 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

circumstance of its invariably appearing with the beginning of 
dog-days. During many years in succession, with only one or 
two exceptions, I have heard this insect, on the twenty-fifth of 
July, for the first time in the season, drumming in the trees, on 
some part of the day between the hours of ten in the morning and 
two in the afternoon. It is true that all do not muster on the 
same day ; for at first they are few in number, and scattered at 
great distances from each other ; new-comers, however, are 
added from day to day, till, in a short time, almost every tree 
see"ms to have its musician, and the rolling of their drums may be 
heard in every direction. This circumstance, however, does not 
render it any the less remarkable that the first of the band should 
keep their appointed time with such extreme regularity. The 
dog-day harvest-fly measures about one inch and six tenths from 
the front to the tips of the wing-covers, which, when spread, ex- 
pand about three inches. Its body is black on the upper side ; 
the under-side of the head, the breast, and the sides of the belly 
are covered with a white substance resembling flour ; the top of 
the head and the thorax are ornamented with olive-green lines and 
characters, one of which, in the shape of the letter W, is very 
conspicuous ; the legs, and the front edge and principal veins of 
the wing-covers and of the wings are also green, and there is a 
dusky zigzag spot on the little cross-veins near the tip of the wing- 
covers ; and the valves beneath the body of the males are wider 
than long. This species has heretofore been mistaken for the 
Cicada pruinosa, or frosted harvest-fly, described by Mr. Say, 
which is found in the Middle States, measures two inches to the 
lips of the wing-covers, has a white spot each side of the base of 
the abdomen, a second on the middle of the sides, and a third 
near to the tip, and has the valves of the males longer than wide*. 

* The form and proportions of the abdominal valves have decided me to separate 
the canicularis from Mr. Say's pruinosa, although, vifith the exception of their dif- 
ference in size, they present no other constant characters which will invariably 
serve to distinguish them from each other. In my collection are four more native 
species of Cicada; namely, the auletes of Germar, our largest species, from North 
Carolina ; a second species, apparently undescribed, about equal to this in magni- 
tude, from Long-Island, New York ; the tibicen of Linnseus, also from New York, 
and quite common even within the city ; and the kieroglyphica of Say, which, 1 



HEMIPTERA. 177 

I am not aware that the females of the dog-day harvest-fly prefer 
to lay their eggs in one rather than in another kind of tree ; for I 
have taken the pupje emerging from the ground beneath cherry, 
maple, and elm trees, and it is probable that they could not have 
travelled far from the trees upon which, when young, they were 
hatched, and upon the trunks of which they finally leave their 
vacant shells. These have much the same form and appearance 
as the pupa-shells of the seventeen-year harvest-fly, but are con- 
siderably larger. Some individuals of this species continue with 
us as late as the end of September. As they are not very nu- 
merous, the injury sustained by the trees from their punctures is 
comparatively small. 

The other harvest-flies of this country have only two eyelets, 
and are not furnished with musical instruments ; but they enjoy 
the faculty of leaping, which the Cicadas do not. This faculty 
does not, as in the grasshoppers and other leaping insects, result 
from an enlargement of their hindmost thighs, which do not differ 
much in thickness from the others ; but is owing to the length of 
their hinder shanks, or to the bristles and spines with which these 
parts are clothed and tipped. These spines serve to fix the hind- 
legs securely to the surface, and, when the insect suddenly un- 
bends its legs, its body is launched forward in the air. Some of 
these harvest-flies, when assisted by their wings, will leap to the 
distance of five or six feet, which is more than two hundred and 
fifty times their own length ; in the same proportion, " a man of 
ordinary stature should be able at once to vault through the air to 
the distance of a quarter of a mile." Some of these leaping har- 
vest-flies have the face nearly vertical, and the thorax very large, 
tapering to a point behind, covering the whole of the upper side 
of the body, and overtopping even the head, vi'hich is not visible 
from above. These belong chiefly to the genus Memhracis^ to 
which allusion has already been made ; and, as they are found 
mostly on the limbs of trees and shrubs, they may receive the 

believe, was captured in Florida, and was presented to me by Mr. Edward Double- 
day. A specimen of the tihicen, or some other large species, has been taken in 
Massachusetts ; but I have not the individual to refer to at this time. 

23 



178 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

name of tree-hoppers *. In others the face slopes downwards 
towards the breast, the thorax is of moderate size, and does not 
extend much, if at all, beyond the base of the wing-covers, and 
does not conceal the head when viewed from above. Some of 
the insects, with this small-sized thorax, are familiarly called, in 
English works, cuckoo-spit and frog-hoppers, and to others may 
be applied the name of leaf-hoppers, because they hve mostly on 
the leaves of plants. 

The thorax differs very much in shape in different kinds of tree- 
hoppers (Membracidid^), and the variations of this part are pro- 
ductive of many odd forms among these insects, and particularly 
in foreign species. Among the species inhabiting Massachusetts 
there are some in which the thorax forms a thin and high arched 
crest over the body, as in Membracis camelus of Fabricius, and 
the vnu of my Catalogue. To these the name of Membracis^ 
which means sharp-edged, is most appHcable. In other species 
(M. emarginata and sinuota of Fabricius, and concava of Say,) 
the crest of the thorax is deeply notched on the top. In others 
the whole of the thorax is not elevated longitudinally in the mid- 
dle, but only in some part ; thus M. Ampelopsidis has an oblong 
square crest on the middle of the thorax ; M. himaculaia of Fa- 
bricius and univittata of my Catalogue have a thin horn-like pro- 
jection, blunt, however, at the end, extending obhquely forwards 
and upwards from the forepart of the thorax ; and M. hinotata and 
latipes of Say have a similarly situated horn, narrower however, 
and curved, so as to give to the insects, when viewed sidewise, 
the shape of a bird ; and, lastly, in M. bubalus of Fabricius, 
diceros of Say, and taurina of my Catalogue, the ridge of the 
thorax, viewed from above, has somewhat the shape of the letter 
T, becoming broad at the forepart, and extending outwards on 
each side like a pair of short thick horns, which gave rise to the 
foregoing specific names, meaning buffalo, two-horned, and kine- 
like. 

The habits of some of the tree-hoppers are presumed to be 
much the same as those of the musical harvest-flies, for they are 



* Mr. Rennie, in the " Library of Entertaining Knowledge", has misapplied 
this name to tlie Cicadas, which do not leap. 



HEMIPTERA. 179 

found on the limbs of trees, where they deposit their eggs, only 
during the adult state, and probably pass the early period of their 
existence in the ground. Others, however, are known to live and 
undergo all their changes on the stems of plants. Among the 
former is our largest native species, the two-spotted tree-hopper, 
or JMtmbracis bimaculata* of Fabricius, which may be found in 
great abundance on the limbs of the locust-tree [Robinia pseuda- 
cacia) during the months of September and October. These, as 
well as other tree-hoppers, show but little activity when undis- 
turbed, remaining without motion for hours together on the limbs 
of the trees ; but, on the approach of the fingers, they leap vigor- 
ously, and, spreading their wings at the same time, fly to another 
limb and settle there, in the same position as before. They 
never sit across the limbs, but always in the direction of their 
length, with the head or forepart of the body towards the ex- 
tremity of the branches. On account of their peculiar form, 
which is that of a thick cone with a very oblique direction, their 
dark color, and their fixed posture while perching, they would 
readily be mistaken for the thorns of the tree, a circumstance un- 
doubtedly intended for their preservation. Other instances have 
been mentioned displaying proofs of equal wisdom in the formation 
of insects. Thus, in the leaf-insects, grasshoppers, and walking- 
sticks, which live in trees, the latter exactly simulating a little 
twig in appearance, and the others having the form and color of 
leaves, their resemblance to the objects among which they have 
been destined to live, has doubtless been given to them with the 
express design of screening them from their enemies of the 
feathered race. Many other examples of the same kind might be 
mentioned, did time and the hmits of my subject warrant ; but 
these alone suffice to show that special provision has been wisely 
made in the construction of certain defenceless animals with a 
view to secure them from observation. Surely insects, the most 
despised of God's creation, are not unworthy our study, since 
they are objects of His care and subjects of a special providence. 
But to return to our locust tree-hopper, which remains to be de- 

* Fabricius describes the male only under this name ; the female is his Mem- 
bracis acuviinata. This species belongs to Professor Germar's new genus He- 
miptycha. 



180 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

scribed ; — it measures about half an inch from the tip of the horn 
to the end of the body ; the male is blackish above, with a long 
yellow spot on each side of the back ; and the female is ash- 
colored, and without spots. While on the trees, these insects, 
though perfectly still, are not unemployed ; but puncture the bark 
with their sharp and slender beaks, and imbibe the sap for nour- 
ishment. The female also appears to commit her eggs to the 
protection of the tree, being furnished with a piercer beneath the 
extremity of her body, with which to make suitable perforations 
in the branches. As I have never seen the young on these trees, 
I presume that, as soon as they are hatched, they make their way 
to the ground, and remain under the surface of the soil, sucking 
the sap from the roots of plants, until they are about to enter 
upon their last period of existence, when they crawl up the trunks 
of the trees, throw off their coats, and appear in the perfect or 
winged state. From the great numbers of these tree-hoppers 
which exist in certain seasons, the locust-trees undoubtedly suffer 
much, not only in consequence of the quantity of sap abstracted 
from their branches, but from the numerous punctures made by 
the insects in obtaining it and in laying their eggs. 

The oak-tree is attacked by another species, the white-lined 
tree-hopper [M. univittata), which may be found upon it during 
the month of July. It is about four tenths of an inch in length ; 
the thorax is brown, has a short obtuse horn extending obliquely 
upwards from its forepart, and there is a white line on the back, 
extending from the top of the horn to the hinder extremity. 

The common creeper {Ampelopsis quinquefolia*) is inhabited 
by a tree-hopper, which has an oblong square and thin elevation 
or crest on the middle of the thorax. Its body is usually of a 
reddish ash-color, and the thorax is ornamented with three reddish 
brown bands, one of which is above the head and extends trans- 
versely between the lateral projecting angles of the thorax, the 
second is a short aad oblique line on each side of the front-part of 
the crest, and the third is also oblique, and begins on the outer 
edge of the thorax, and passes obliquely forwards on each side to 

* Some botanists have unwarrantably changed the specific name of this plant to 
Hederacea. 



HEMIPTERA. 181 

the top of the hind part of the crest. This species may be called 
Membracis Ampelopsidis* ^ from the plant on which it is found in 
the perfect state. The young appear to live in the earth till they 
are fully grown and have acquired the rudiments of wing-covers 
and wings, or have become pupse, after which they are seen as- 
cending the stems of the creeper, on which they change their 
skins for the last time. This occurs from the middle to the end 
of June. 

There is a little tree-hopper, which is found during the months 
of July and August on the wax-work, or Celastrus scandens, ac- 
companied usually by its young. When fully grown it is nearly 
three tenths of an inch in length, including the horn of the thorax ; 
is of a dusky brown color, with two yellowish spots on the ridge 
of the back ; and the first four shanks are exceedingly broad and 
flat. It is the two-spotted tree-hopper, or Membracis binotata of 
Say. When seen sidewise it presents a profile much like that of 
a bird, the head and neck of which are represented by the curved 
projecting horn of the thorax ; and a group of these little tree- 
hoppers, of various sizes, clustered together on a stem of the 
wax-work, may be likened to a flock of old and young partridges. 
They appear to pass through all their transformations on the plant, 
are fond of society, and sit close together, with their heads all 
in the same direction. 

Tree-hoppers are often surrounded by ants, for the sake of 
their castings, and for the sap which oozes from the punctures 
made by the former, of which the ants are very fond. Those 
kinds, that live on the stems of plants from the time when they 
are hatched till they are fully grown, are very closely attended by 
ants ; and, as from their constant sucking the young become often 
wet, their careful attendants, the ants, find regular employment 
in wiping them clean and dry with their antennae and tongues. 

The remaining Homopterous insects have a thorax of moderate 
size, not tapering to a point behind, and not covering the whole 
body as in the preceding species. Their heads are visible from 
above, and the face slopes downwards towards the breast. 

Here may be arranged the singular insects called frog-hoppers, 

* It is the Membracis Cissi of my Catalogue. 



182 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

(Cercopidid^), which pass their whole hves on plants, on the 
stems of which their eggs are laid in the autumn. The following 
summer they are hatched, and the young immediately perforate 
the bark with their beaks, and begin to imbibe the sap. They 
take in such quantities of this, that it oozes out of their bodies 
continually, in the form of little bubbles, which soon completely 
cover up the insects. They thus remain entirely buried and con- 
cealed in large masses of foam, until they have completed their 
final transformation, on which account the names of cuckoo-spittle, 
frog-spittle, and frog-hoppers have been applied to them. We 
have several species of these frog-hoppers in Massachusetts, and 
the spittle, with which they are sheltered from the sun and air, 
may be seen in great abundance, during the summer, on the stems 
of our alders and willows. In the perfect state they are not thus 
protected, but are found on the plants, in the latter part of sum- 
mer, fully grown and preparing to lay their eggs. In this state 
they possess the power of leaping in a still more remarkable de- 
gree than the tree-hoppers ; and, for this purpose, the tips of 
their hind shanks are surrounded with little spines, and the first 
two joints of their feet have a similar coronet of spines at their 
extremities. Their thorax narrows a little behind, and projects 
somewhat between the bases of the wing-covers ; their bodies are 
rather short, and their wing-covers are almost horizontal and quite 
broad across the middle, which, with the shortness of their legs, 
gives them a squat appearance.* 

The leaf-hoppers (Tettigoniad^) leap almost as well as the 
spittle-insects just mentioned ; but their hind-legs are longer, are 
not surrounded with coronets of short spines, but are three sided, 
and generally fringed on two of their edges with numerous long 
and slender spines, which contribute, like the coronets of the 
frog-hoppers, to fix their shanks firmly when they are about to 
leap. The leaf-hoppers have been divided, by Professor Ger- 
mar and other entomologists, into many genera, according to the 

* The following species are found in Massachusetts ; namely Cercopis igni- 
pecta of my Catalogue, and the parallela, quadraiigularis, and obtusa, of Say. 
The last tiiree belong to Germar's genus Jlphropkora, whicli means spume-bear- 
er. Cercopis, which may be translated impostor, was applied by the Greeks to a 
small Cicada. 



HEMIPTERA. 183 

structure of their legs, the situation of the eyelets, and the form 
of the head ; but we may retain them, without inconvenience, in 
the genus Tettigonia, proposed for them by GeofFroy, or rather 
adopted from the ancient Greeks, who gave this name to the small 
kinds of harvest-flies, calling the larger ones Tettix. , The Tetti- 
gonians, or leaf-hoppers, have the head and thorax somewhat like 
those of frog-hoppers, but their bodies are, in general, proportion- 
ally longer, not so broad across the middle, and not so much 
flattened. The head, as seen from above, is broad, and either 
crescent-shaped, semicircular, or even extended forwards in the 
form of a triangle ; its upper side is more or less flattened, and 
the face slopes downwards towards the breast at an acute angle 
with the top of the head. The thorax is wider than long, with 
the front margin curving forwards, the hind margin transverse, or 
not extended between the wing-covers, which space is filled by a 
pretty large triangular scutel or escutcheon. The wing-covers 
are generally opake, rather long and narrow, and more or less in- 
clined at the sides of the body, not flat however, but moulded 
somewhat to the form of the body, and the wings are rather 
shorter and broader, not netted like those of the tree-hoppers, but 
strengthened by a few longitudinal veins. The eyes, which are 
distant from each other, and placed at the sides of the head, are 
pretty large, but flattish, and not globular as in the Cicadas ; and 
the eyelets, which are rarely wanting, vary in their situation, 
being sometimes on the top and sometimes below the front edge of 
the head. Notwithstanding the small size of most of these insects, 
they are deserving our attention on account of their beauty, deli- 
cacy, and surprising agility, as well as for the injury sustained by 
vegetation from them ; and these circumstances have induced me 
to give the characters of this group somewhat in detail, with the 
view of drawing attention to these insects, and with the hope that 
other persons may thereby be induced and guided to an investiga- 
tion of their history. As my own opportunities have been very 
few, I shall confine myself to an account of only two of these leaf- 
hoppers. 

It is stated by the late Mr. Fessenden, in the "New American 
Gardener," that some persons in this country have entirely 
"abandoned their grape-vines" in consequence of the depreda- 



184 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

tions of a small insect, which, for many years, was supposed to be 
the vine-fretter of Europe. It is not however the same insect, 
but is a leaf-hopper, and was first described by me in the year 
1831, in the eighth volume of the "Encyclopaedia Americana*", 
under the name of Tettigonia Vitis. In its perfect state it 
measures one tenth of an inch in length. It is of a pale yellow or 
straw color ; there are two little red lines on the head ; the back 
part of the thorax, the scutel, the base of the wing-covers, and a 
broad band across their middle, are scarlet ; the tips of the wing- 
covers are blackish, and there are some little red lines between 
the broad band and the tips. The head is crescent-shaped above, 
and the eyelets are situated just below the ridge of the front, f 
The vine-hoppers, as they may be called, inhabit the foreign and 
the native grape-vines, on the under surface of the leaves of which 
they may be found during the greater part of the summer ; for 
they pass through all their changes on the vines. They make 
their first appearance on the leaves in June, when they are very 
small and not provided with wings, being then in the larva state. 
During most of the time they remain perfectly quiet, with their 
beaks thrust into the leaves from which they derive their nourish- 
ment by suction. If disturbed, however, they leap from one leaf 
to another with great agility. As they increase in size they have 
occasion frequently to change their skins, and great numbers of 
their empty cast-skins, of a white color, will be found, throughout 
the summer, adhering to the under-sides of the leaves and upon 
the ground beneath the vines. When arrived at maturity, which 
generally occurs during the month of August, they are still more 
agile than before, making use of their delicate wings as well as 
their legs in their motions from place to place ; and, when the 
leaves are agitated, they leap and fly from them in swarms, but 
soon alight and begin again their destructive operations. The in- 
fested leaves at length become yellow, sickly, and prematurely 
dry, and give to the vine at midsummer the aspect it naturally as- 
sumes on the approach of winter. But this is not the only injury 
arising from the exhausting punctures of the vine-hoppers. In 

* Article Locust, p. 43. 

t This species must belong to the same genus as Cicada llandula of Rossi and 
Fallen, which it resembles in form and in the situation of the ocelli or eyelets. 



HEMIPTERA. 185 

consequence of the interruption of the important functions of the 
leaves, the plant itself languishes, the stem does not increase in 
size, very little new wood is formed, or, in the language of the 
gardeners, the canes do not ripen well, the fruit is stunted and mil- 
dews, and, if the evil be allowed to go on unchecked, in a few 
years the vines become exhausted, barren, and worthless. In the 
autumn the vine-hoppers desert the vines, and retire for shelter 
during the coming winter beneath fallen leaves and among the de- 
cayed tufts and roots of grass, where they remain till the following 
spring, when they emerge from their winter-quarters, and in due 
time deposit their eggs upon the leaves of the vine, and then per- 
ish. As the vine-hoppers are much more hardy and more viva- 
cious than the European vine-fretters or plant-lice, the applications 
that have proved destructive to the latter are by no means so effi- 
cacious with the former. Fumigations with tobacco, beneath a 
movable tent placed over the trellisses, answer the purpose com- 
pletely.* They require frequent repetition, and considerable 
care is necessary to prevent the escape and ensure the destruction 
of the insects ; circumstances which render the discovery of some 
more expeditious method an object to those whose vineyards are 
extensive. 

I have found that the Windsor bean, a variety of the Vicia 
Faba of Linnaeus, is subject to the attacks of a species of leaf- 
hopper, particularly during dry seasons, and when cultivated in 
light soils. In the early part of summer the insects are so small 
and so light colored that they easily escape observation, and it is 
not till the beginning of July, when the beans are usually large 
enough to be gathered for the table, that the ravages of the insects 
lead to their discovery. A large proportion of the pods will then 
be found to be rough, and covered with little dark colored dots or 
scars, and many of them seem to be unusually spongy and not 
well filled. On opening these spongy pods, we find that the beans 
have not grown to their proper size, and if they are left on the 
plant they cease to enlarge. At the same time the leaves, pods, 
and stalks are more or less infested with little leaf-hoppers, 

* See Fessenden's " New American Gardener", p. 299, for a description of the 
tent and of the process of fumigation. 

24 



186 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

not fully grown, and unprovided with wings. Usually between 
the end of July and the middle of August the insects come to 
their growth and acquire their wings ; but the mischief at this 
time is finished, and the plants have suffered so much that all 
prospect of a second crop of beans, from new shoots produced 
after the old stems are cut down, is frustrated. These leaf-hop- 
pers have the same agility in their motions, and apparently the 
same habits, as the vine-hoppers ; but in the perfect state they are 
longer, more slender, and much more delicate. They are of a 
pale green color ; the wing-covers and wings are transparent and 
colorless ; and the last joint of the hind-feet is bluish. The 
head, as seen from above, is crescent-shaped, and the two eyelets 
are situated on its front-edge. The male has two long recurved 
feathery threads at the extremity of the body. The length of this 
species is rather more than one tenth, but less than three twen- 
tieths of an inch. It may be called Tettigonia FabcB. Probably 
it passes the winter in the same way as the vine-hopper. 

2. Plant-lice. (^ApJiidicla.^ 

The Aphidians, in which group we include the insects com- 
monly known by the name of plant-lice, differ remarkably from all 
the foregoing in their appearance, their formation, and their man- 
ner of increase. Their bodies are very soft, and usually more or 
less oval. The females are often without wing-covers and wings ; 
and the former, when they exist, do not differ in texture from the 
wings, but are usually much larger and more useful in flight. We 
may therefore cease to call these parts wing-covers, in all the 
remaining insects of this order, and apply to them the name of 
upper wings. 

Some of the Aphidians have the power of leaping, like the 
leaf-hoppers, from which, however, they differ in having very 
large and transparent upper wings, which cover the sides of the 
body like a very steep roof; and their antennae are pretty long 
and thread-like, and are tipped with two bristles at the end. Both 
sexes, when arrived at maturity, are winged, and some of the 
females are provided with a kind of awl at the end of the body, 
very different, however, from the piercers of the foregoing in- 
sects. With this they prick the leaves in which they deposit 



HEMIPTERA. 187 

their eggs, and the wounds thus made sometimes produce httle 
excrescences or swellings on the plant. These leaping plant-lice 
belong to a genus called Psylla^ which was the Greek name for a 
small jumping insect. They are by no means so prolific as the 
other plant-lice, for they produce only one brood in the year. 
They live in groups, composed of about a dozen individuals each, 
upon the stems and leaves of plants, the juices of which they im- 
bibe through their tubular beaks. The young are often covered 
with a substance resembling fine cotton arranged in flakes. This 
is the case with some which are found on the alder and birch in 
the spring of the year. 

Others, both sexes of which are also winged, have long and 
slender bodies, very narrow wings, which are fringed with fine 
hairs, and lie flatly on the back when not in use. They are ex- 
ceedingly active in all their motions, and seem to leap rather than 
fly. They live on leaves, flowers, in buds, and even in the 
crevices of the bark of plants, but are so small that they readily 
escape notice, the largest being not more than one tenth of an 
inch in length. These minute and slender insects belong to the 
genus Thrips. Their punctures appear to poison plants, and 
often produce deformities in the leaves and blossoms. The 
peach-tree sometimes suffers severely from their attacks, as well as 
from those of the true plant-lice ; and they are found beneath the 
leaves, in little hollows caused by their irritating punctures. The 
same applications that are employed for the destruction of plant- 
lice may be used with advantage upon plants infested with the 
Thrips. 

Jlphichs^ or plant-lice, as they are usually called, are among 
the most extraordinary of insects. They are found upon almost 
all parts of plants, the roots, stems, young shoots, buds, and 
leaves, and there is scarcely a plant which does not harbour one or 
two kinds peculiar to itself. They are, moreover, exceedingly 
prolific, for Reaumur has proved that one individual, in five gen- 
erations, may become the progenitor of nearly six thousand mil- 
lions of descendants. It often happens that the succulent ex- 
tremities and stems of plants will, in an incredibly short space of 
time, become completely coated with a living mass of these little 
lice. These are usually wingless, consisting of the young and of 



188 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the females only ; for winged individuals appear only at particular 
seasons, usually in the autumn, but sometimes in the spring, and 
these are small males and larger females. After pairing, the latter 
lay their eggs upon or near the leaf-buds of the plant upon which 
they live, and, together with the males, soon afterwards perish. 

The genus to which plant-Hce belong is called Aphis, from a 
Greek word which signifies to exhaust. The following are the 
principal characters by which they may be distinguished from 
other insects. Their bodies are short, oval, and soft, and are 
furnished at the hinder extremity with two little tubes, knobs, or 
pores, from which exude almost constantly minute drops of a fluid 
as sweet as honey ; their heads are small, their beaks are very 
long and tubular, their eyes are globular, but they have not eye- 
lets, their antennae are long, and usually taper towards the ex- 
tremity, and their legs are also long and very slender, and there 
are only two joints to their feet. Their upper are nearly twice 
as large as the lower wings, are much longer than the body, are 
gradually widened towards the extremity, and nearly triangular ; 
they are almost vertical when at rest, and cover the body above 
like a very sharp-ridged roof. 

The winged plant-lice provide for a succession of their race" 
by stocking the plants with eggs in the autumn, as before stated. 
These are hatched in due time in the spring, and the young lice 
immediately begin to pump up sap from the tender leaves and 
shoots, increase rapidly in size, and in a short time come to ma- 
turity. In this state, it is found that the brood, without a single 
exception, consists wholly of females, which are wingless, but 
are in a condition immediately to continue their kind. Their 
young, however, are not hatched from eggs, but are produced 
alive, and each female may be the mother of fifteen or twenty 
young lice in the course of a single day. The plant-lice of this 
second generation are also wingless females, which grow up and 
have their young in due time ; and thus brood after brood is pro- 
duced, even to the seventh generation or more, without the ap- 
pearance or intervention, throughout the whole season, of a single 
male. This extraordinary kind of propagation ends in the autumn 
with the birth of a brood of males and females, which in due time 
acquire wings and pair ; eggs are then laid by these females, and 



HEMIPTERA. 189 

with the death of these winged individuals, which soon follows, 
the race becomes extinct for the season. 

Plant-lice seem to love society, and often herd together in 
dense masses, each one remaining fixed to the plant by means of 
its long tubular beak ; and they rarely change their places till they 
have exhausted the part first attacked. The attitudes and man- 
ners of these little creatures are exceedingly amusing. When 
disturbed, like restive horses, they begin to kick and sprawl in 
the most ludicrous manner. They may be seen, at times, sus- 
pended by their beaks alone, and throwing up their legs as if in a 
high frolic, but too much engaged in sucking to withdraw their 
beaks. As they take in great quantities of sap, they would soon 
become gorged if they did not get rid of the superabundant fluid 
through the two little tubes or pores at the extremity of their 
bodies. When one of them gets running-over full, it seems to 
communicate its uneasy sensations, by a kind of animal magnetism, 
to the whole flock, upon which they all, with one accord, jerk 
upwards their bodies, and eject a shower of the honeyed fluid. 
The leaves and bark of plants much infested by these insects are 
often completely sprinkled over with drops of this sticky fluid, 
which, on drying, become dark colored, and greatly disfigure the 
foliage. This appearance has been denominated honey-dew ; but 
there is another somewhat similar production observable on plants, 
after very dry weather, which has received the same name, and 
consists of an extravasation or oozing of the sap from the leaves. 
We are often apprized of the presence of plant-lice on plants 
growing in the open air by the ants ascending and descending the 
stems. By observing the motions of the latter we soon ascertain 
that the sweet fluid discharged by the lice is the occasion of these 
visits. The stems swarm with slim and hungry ants running up- 
wards, and others lazily descending with their bellies swelled 
almost to bursting. When arrived in the immediate vicinity of 
the plant-hce, they greedily wipe up the sweet fluid which has 
distilled from them, and, when this fails, they station themselves 
among the lice, and catch the drops as they fall. The lice do not 
seem in the least annoyed by the ants, but live on the best possi- 
ble terms with them ; and, on the other hand, the ants, though 
unsparing of other insects weaker than themselves, upon yvhich 



190 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

they frequently prey, treat the plant-lice with the utmost gentle- 
ness, caressing them with their antennae, and apparently inviting 
them to give out the fluid by patting their sides. Nor are the lice 
inattentive to these solicitations, when in a state to gratify the ants, 
for whose sake they not only seem to shorten the periods of the 
discharge, but actually yield the fluid when thus pressed. A 
single louse has been known to give it drop by drop successively 
to a number of ants, that were waiting anxiously to receive it. 
When the plant-lice cast their skins, the ants instantly remove the 
latter, nor will they allow any dirt or rubbish to remain upon or 
about them. They even protect them from their enemies, and 
run about them in the hot sunshine to drive away the little ich- 
neumon flies that are for ever hovering near to deposit their eggs 
in the bodies of the lice. 

Plant-Uce differ very much in form, color, clothing, and in the 
length of the honey-tubes. Some have these tubes quite long, as 
the rose-louse, Jl-phis Rosce^ which is green, and has a little 
conical projection or stylet, as it is called, at the extremity of the 
body, between the two honey-tubes. The cabbage-louse, Aphis 
Brassicce,' has also long honey-tubes, but its body is covered with 
a whitish mealy substance. This species is very abundant on the 
under-side of cabbage leaves in the month of August. The 
largest species known to me is found in clusters beneath the hmbs 
of the pig-nut hickory {Carya porcina) , in all stages of growth, 
from the first to the middle of July. It is the Jlphis* CarycB of 
my Catalogue. Its body, in -the winged state, measures one 
quarter of an inch to the end of the abdomen, and above four 
tenths of an inch to the tips of the upper wings, which expand 
rather more than seven tenths of an inch. It has no terminal 
stylet, and the honey-tubes are very short. Its body is covered 
with a bluish white substance like the bloom of a plum, with four 
rows of little transverse black spots on the back ; the top of the 
thorax, and the veins of the wings are black, as are also the 
shanks, the feet, and the antennae, which are clothed with black 
hairs ; the thighs are reddish brown. This species sucks the sap 
from the limbs and not from the leaves of the hickory. There is 

* It probably belongs to the genus Lachnus of IHiger, or Cinara of Curtis. 



HEMIPTERA. 191 

another large species, living in the same way on the under-side of 
the branches of various kinds of wiilovi's, and clustered together 
in great numbers. About the first of October they are found in 
the winged state. The body measures one tenth of an inch in 
length, and the wings expand about four tenths. The stylet is 
wanting ; the body is black and without spots ; the wings are 
transparent, but their veins, the short honey-tubercles, the third 
joint of the antennse, and the legs, are tawny yellow. This 
species cannot be identical with the willow-louse, Jlphis Salicis of 
Linnaeus, which has a spotted body ; and therefore I propose to 
call it Jlphis Salicti, the plant-louse of willow groves. When 
crushed, it communicates a stain of a reddish or deep orange color. 
Some plant-lice live in the ground and derive their nourish- 
ment from the roots of plants. We annually lose many of 
our herbaceous plants, if cultivated in a light soil, from the ex- 
hausting attacks of these subterranean lice. Upon pulling up 
China Asters, which seemed to be perishing from no visible cause, 
I have found hundreds of little hce, of a white color, closely 
clustered together on the roots. I could never discover any of 
them that were winged, and therefore conclude from this circum- 
stance as vi^ell as from their peculiar situation, that they never ac- 
quire wings. Whether these are of the same species as the 
Aphis radicum of Europe, I cannot ascertain, as no sufficient de- 
scription of the latter has ever come to my notice. These little 
lice are attended by ants, which generally make their nests near 
the roots of the plants, so as to have their milch kine, as the 
plant-lice have been called, within their own habitations ; and, in 
consequence of the combined operations of the lice and the ants, 
the plants wither and prematurely perish. When these subter- 
ranean lice are disturbed, the attendant ants are thrown into the 
greatest confusion, and alarm ; they carefully take up the lice 
which have fallen from the roots, and convey them in their jaws 
into the deep recesses of their nests ; and here the lice still con- 
trive to live upon the fragments of the roots left in the soil. It is 
stated* that the ants bestow the same care and attention upon the 
root-lice as upon their own offspring, that they defend them from 

-• 

* See Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology, Vol. II. p. 91, 92. 



192 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the attacks of other insects, and carry them about in their mouths 
to change their pasture ; and that they pay particular attention to 
the eggs of the Uce, frequently moistening them with their tongues, 
and in fine weather bringing them to the surface of the nest to 
give them the advantage of the sun. On the other hand, the sweet 
fluid supplied in abundance by these lice forms the chief nutri- 
ment both of the ants and their young, which is sufficient to ac- 
count for their sohcitude and care for their valuable herds. 

The peach-tree suffers very much from the attacks of plant- 
lice, which live under the leaves, causing them by their punctures 
to become thickened, to curl or form hollows beneath, and cor- 
responding crispy and reddish swellings above, and finally to per- 
ish and drop off prematurely. Whether our insect is the same as 
the European Aphis of the peach-tree {Aphis PersiccB of Sulzer) 
I cannot determine, for the want of a proper description of the 
latter. The depredations of these lice is one of the causes, if not 
the only cause of the peculiar malady affecting the peach-tree in 
the early part of summer, and called the blight. 

The injuries occasioned by plant-lice are much greater than 
would at first be expected from the small size and extreme weak- 
ness of the insects ; but these make up by their numbers what they 
want in strength individually, and thus become formidable enemies 
to vegetation. By their punctures, and the quantity of sap which 
they draw from the leaves, the functions of these important organs 
are deranged or interrupted, the food of the plant, which is there 
elaborated to nourish the stem and mature the fruit, is withdrawn, 
before it can reach its proper destination, or is contaminated and 
left in a state unfitted to supply the wants of vegetation. Plants 
are differently affected by these insects. Some wither and cease 
to grow, their leaves and stems put on a sickly appearance, and 
soon die from exhaustion. Others, though not killed, are greatly 
impeded in their growth, and their tender parts, which are attack- 
ed, become stunted, curled, or warped. The punctures of these 
lice seem to poison some plants, and affect others in a most sin- 
gular manner, producing warts or swelHngs, which are sometimes 
solid and sometimes hollow, and contain in their interior a swarm 
of lice, the descendants of a single individual, whose punctures 
were the original cause of the tumor. I have seen reddish tumors 



HEMIPTERA. 193 

of this kind, as big as a pigeon's egg, growing upon leaves, to 
which they were attached by a slender neck, and containing thous- 
ands of small lice in their interior. Naturalists call these tumors 
galls, because they seem to be formed in the same way as the 
oak-galls which are used in the making of ink. The lice which 
inhabit or produce them generally differ from the others, in hav- 
ing shorter antennae, being without honey-tubes, and in frequently 
being clothed with a kind of white down, which, however, disap- 
pears when the insects become winged. 

These downy plant-lice are now placed in the genus Eriosoma, 
which means woolly body, and the most destructive species be- 
longing to it was first described, under the name of Aphis lani- 
gera^ by Mr. Hausmann *, in the year 1801, as infesting the apple- 
trees in Germany. It seems that it had been noticed in England 
as early as the year 1787, and has since acquired there the name 
of American blight, from the erroneous supposition that it had 
been imported from this country. It was known, however, to the 
French gardeners f for a long time previous to both of the above 
dates, and, according to Mr. Rennie|, is found in the orchards 
about Harfleur, in Normandy, and is very destructive to the ap- 
ple-trees in the department of Calvados. There is now good 
reason to believe that the miscalled American blight is not indi- 
genous to this country, and that it has been introduced here with 
fruit-trees from Europe. Some persons, indeed, have supposed 
that it was not to be found here at all, but the late Mr. Buel has 
stated § that it existed on his apple-trees, and 1 have once or 
twice seen it on apple-trees in Massachusetts, where, however, it 
still appears to be rare, and consequently I have not been able to 
examine the insects sufficiently myself. The best account that I 
have seen of them is contained in Knapp's " Journal of a Nat- 
uralist", from which, and from Hausmann's description, the fol- 
lowing observations are chiefly extracted. 

The eggs of the woolly apple-tree louse are so small as not to 
be distinguished without a microscope, and are enveloped in a 
cotton-like substance furnished by the body of the insect. They 

*'Illiger's Magazin, Vol. I. p. 440. t Salisbury's Hints on Orchards, p. 39. 
i Insect Miscellanies, p. 180. § New England Farmer, VII. p. 169 ; IX. p. 178. 

25 



194 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are deposited in the crotches of the branches and in the chinks of 
the bark at or near the surface of the ground, especially if there 
are suckers springing from the same place. The young, when 
first hatched, are covered with a very short and fine down, and ap- 
pear in the spring of the year like little specks of mould on the 
trees. As the season advances, and the insect increases in size, 
its downy coat becomes more distinct, and grows in length daily. 
This down is very easily removed, adheres to the fingers when it 
is touched, and seems to issue from all the pores of the skin of 
the abdomen. When fully grown, the insects of the first brood 
are one tenth of an inch in length, and, when the down is rubbed 
off, the head, antennae, sucker, and shins are found to be of a 
blackish color, and the abdomen honey-yellow. The young are 
produced alive during the summer, are buried in masses of the 
down, and derive their nourishment from the sap of the bark and 
of the alburnum or young wood immediately under the bark. 
The adult insects never acquire wings, at least such is the testi- 
mony both of Hausmann and Knapp, and are destitute of honey- 
tubes, but from time to time emit drops of a sticky fluid from the 
extremity of the body. These insects, though destitute of wings, 
are conveyed from tree to tree by means of their long down, 
which is so plentiful and so light, as easily to be wafted by the 
winds of autumn, and thus the evil will gradually spread through- 
out an extensive orchard. The numerous punctures of these lice 
produce on the tender shoots a cellular appearance, and wherever 
a colony of them is established, warts or excrescences arise on 
the bark ; the limbs thus attacked become sickly, the leaves turn 
yellow and drop off; and, as the infection spreads from limb to 
limb, the whole tree becomes diseased, and eventually perishes. 
In Gloucestershire, England, so many apple-trees were destroyed 
by these lice in the year 1810, that it was feared the making of 
cider must be abandoned. In the north of England the apple- 
trees are greatly injured, and some annually destroyed by them, 
and in the year 1826 they abounded there in such incredible luxu- 
riance, that many trees seemed, at a short distance, as if they had 
been whitewashed. 

Mr. Knapp thinks that remedies can prove efficacious in re- 
moving this evil only upon a small scale, and that when the injury 



HEMIPTERA. 195 

has existed for some time, and extended its influence over the 
parts of a large tree, it will take its course, and the tree will die. 
He says that he has removed this blight from young trees, and 
from recently attacked places in those more advanced, by painting 
over every node or infected part of the tree with a composition con- 
sisting of three ounces of melted resin mixed with the same quan- 
tity of fish oil, which is to be put on while warm, with a painter's 
brush. Sir Joseph Banks succeeded in extirpating the insects 
from his own trees by removing all the old and rugged bark, and 
scrubbing the trunk and branches with a hard brush. The appli- 
cation of the spirits of tar, of spirits of turpentine, of oil, urine, 
and of soft soap, has been recommended. Mr. Buel found that 
oil sufficed to drive the insects from the trunks and branches, but 
that it could not be applied to the roots, where he stated numbers 
of the insects harbored. The following treatment I am inclined 
to think will prove as successful as any which has heretofore been 
recommended. Scrape off all the rough bark of the infected 
trees, and make them perfectly clean and smooth early in the 
spring ; then rub the trunk and limbs with a stiff brush wet with a 
solution of potash as hereafter recommended for the destruction 
of bark-lice ; after which remove the sods and earth around the 
bottom of the trunk, and with the scraper, brush, and alkaline 
liquor cleanse that part as far as the roots can conveniently be un- 
covered. The earth and sods should immediately be carried 
away, fresh loam should be placed around the roots, and all cracks 
and wounds should be filled with grafting cement or clay mortar. 
Small limbs and extremities of branches, if infected, and beyond 
reach of the applications, should be cut off and burned. 

There are several other species of Eriosoma or downy lice in 
this State, inhabiting various forest and ornamental trees, some of 
which may also have been introduced from abroad. The descrip- 
tions of foreign plant-lice are mostly so brief and imperfect, that it 
is impossible to ascertain from them which of our species are 
identical with those of Europe ; I shall therefore omit any further 
account of these insects, and close this part of the subject with a 
few remarks on the remedies to be employed for their destruction 
generally, and some notice of the natural enemies of plant-lice. 

Solutions of soap, or a mixture of soap-suds and tobacco water, 



196 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

used warm and applied with a watering pot or with a garden en- 
gine, may be employed for the destruction of these insects. It is 
said that hot water may also be employed for the same purpose 
with safety and success. The water, tobacco-tea, or suds should 
be thrown upon the plants with considerable force, and if they are 
of the cabbage or lettuce kind, or other plants whose leaves are to 
be used as food, they should subsequently be drenched thoroughly 
with pure water. Lice on the extremities of branches may be 
killed by bending over the branches and holding them for several 
minutes in warm and strong soap-suds. Lice multiply much 
faster, and are more injurious to plants, in a dry than in a wet 
atmosphere ; hence in green houses, attention should be paid to 
keep the air sufficiently moist ; and the lice are readily killed by 
fumigations with tobacco or with sulphur. To destroy subter- 
ranean lice on the roots of plants I have found that watering with 
salt water was useful, if the plants were hardy ; but tender herb- 
aceous plants cannot be treated in this way, but may sometimes 
be revived, when suffering from these hidden foes, by free and 
frequent watering with soap-suds. 

Plant-lice would undoubtedly be much more abundant and de- 
structive, if they were not kept in check by certain redoubtable 
enemies of the insect kind, which seem expressly created to 
diminish their numbers. These lice-destroyers are of three sorts. 
The first are the young or larvae of the hemispherical beetles 
familiarly known by the name of lady-birds, and scientifically 
by that of Coccinella. These little beetles are generally yellow 
or red, with black spots, or black, with white, red, or yellow 
spots ; there are many kinds of them, and they are very common 
and plentiful insects, and are generally diffused among plants. 
They live, both in the perfect and young state, upon plant-lice, 
and hence their services are very considerable. Their young are 
small flattened grubs of a bluish or blue-black color, spotted 
usually with red or yellow, and furnished with six legs near the 
forepart of the body. They are hatched from httle yellow eggs, 
laid in clusters among the plant-lice, so that they find themselves 
at once within reach of their prey, which, from their superior 
strength, they are enabled to seize and slaughter in great numbers. 
There are some of these lady-birds, of a very small size, and 



HEMIPTERA. 197 

blackish color, sparingly clothed with short hairs, and sometimes 
with a yellow spot at the end of the wing-covers, whose young are 
clothed with short tufts or flakes of the most delicate white down. 
These insects belong to the genus Scym7ius, which means a lion's 
whelp, and they well merit such a name, for their young, in pro- 
portion to their size, are as sanguinary and ferocious as the most 
savage beasts of prey. I have often seen one of these little tufted 
animals preying upon the plant-lice, catching and devouring, with 
the greatest ease, Hce nearly as large as its own body, one after 
another, in rapid succession, without apparently satiating its hun- 
ger or diminishing its activity. 

The second kind of plant-lice destroyers are the young of the 
golden-eyed lace-winged fly, Chrysopa perla. This fly is of a 
pale green color, and has four wings resembling delicate lace, and 
eyes of the brilliancy of polished gold, as its generical name im- 
plies ; but, notwithstanding its delicacy and beauty, it is extremely 
disgusting from the offensive odor that it exhales. It suspends its 
eggs, by threads, in clusters beneath the leaves where plant-lice 
abound. The young, or larva, is a rather long and slender grub, 
provided with a pair of large curved and sharp teeth {jaws), mov- 
ing laterally, and each perforated with a hole through which it 
sucks the juices of its victims. The havoc it makes is astonish- 
ing ; for one minute is all the time which it requires to kill the 
largest plant-louse, and suck out the fluid contents of its body. 

The last of the enemies of plant-lice are the maggots or young 
of various two-winged flies belonging to the genus Syrphus. 
Many of these flies are black with yellow bands on their bodies. 
I have often seen them hovering over small trees and other plants, 
depositing their eggs, which they do on the wing, like the bot- 
fly, curving their tails beneath the leaves, and fixing here and 
there an egg, wherever plant-lice are discovered. Others lay 
their eggs near the buds of trees, where the young may find their 
appropriate nourishment as soon as they are hatched. The young 
are maggots, which are thick and blunt behind, tapering and point- 
ed before ; their mouths are armed with a triple-pointed dart, 
with which they pierce their prey, elevate it above their heads, 
and feast upon its juices at leisure. Though these maggots are 
totally blind, they are enabled to discover their victims without 



198 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

much groping about, in consequence of the provident care of the 
parent flies, which leave their eggs in the very midst of the slug- 
gish lice. Mr. Kirby says, that, on examining his currant-bushes, 
which but a week before were infested by myriads of aphides, not 
one was to be found ; but beneath each leaf were three or four 
full-fed maggots, surrounded by heaps of the slain, the trophies of 
their successful warfare. He also says that he has found it very 
easy to clear a plant or small tree of lice, by placing upon it sev- 
eral larvae of Coccinella or Syrphi. 

3. Bark-lice. Coccidce. 

The celebrated scarlet in grain, which has been employed in 
Asia and the South of Europe, from the earUest ages, as a color- 
ing material, was known to the Romans by the name of Coccus^ 
derived from a similar Greek word, and was, for a long time, sup- 
posed to be a vegetable production, or grain, as indeed its name 
implies. At length it was ascertained that this valuable dye was 
an insect, and others agreeing with it in habits, and some also in 
properties, having been discovered, Linnaeus retained them all un- 
der the same name. Hence in the genus Coccus are included not 
only the Thola of the Phcenicians and Jews, the Kermes of the 
Arabians, or the Coccus of the Greeks and Romans, but the 
scarlet grain of Poland, and the still more valuable Cochenille of 
Mexico, together with various kinds of bark-lice, agreeing with 
the former in habits and structure. These insects vary very 
much in form ; some of them are oval and shghtly convex scales, 
and others have the shape of a muscle ; some are quite convex, 
and either formed like a boat turned bottom upwards, or are kid- 
ney shaped, or globular. They live mostly on the bark of the 
stems of plants, some however, are habitually found upon leaves, 
and some on roots. In the early state, the head is completely 
withdrawn beneath the shell of the body and concealed, the beak 
or sucker seems to issue from the breast, and the legs are very 
short and not visible from above. The females undergo only a 
partial transformation, or rather scarcely any other change than 
that of an increase in size, which, in some species indeed, is enor- 
mous, compared with the previous condition of the insect ; but 
the males pass through a complete transformation before arriving 



HEMIPTERA. 199 

at the perfect or winged state. In both sexes we find threadlike 
or tapering antennae, longer than the head, but much shorter than 
those of plant-lice, and feet consisting of only one joint, termi- 
nated by a single claw. The mature female retains the beak 
or sucker, but does not acquire wings ; the male on the contrary 
has two wings, but the beak disappears. In both there are two 
slender threads at the extremity of the body, very short in some 
females, usually quite long in the males, which moreover are pro- 
vided with a stylet at the tip of the abdomen, which is recurved 
beneath the body. 

The following account* contains a summary of nearly all that 
is known respecting the history and habits of these insects. 
Early in the spring the bark-lice are found apparently torpid, 
situated longitudinally in regard to the branch, the head upwards, 
and sticking by their flattened inferior surface closely to the bark. 
On attempting to remove them they are generally crushed, and 
there issues from the body a dark colored fluid. By pricking 
them with a pin, they can be made to quit their hold, as I have 
often seen in the common species. Coccus Hespei'idum, infesting the 
myrtle. A little later the body is more swelled, and, on carefully 
raising it with a knife, numerous oblong eggs will be discovered 
beneath it, and the insect appears dried up and dead, and only its 
outer skin remains, which forms a convex cover to its future pro- 
geny. Under this protecting shield the young are hatched, and, 
on the approach of warm weather, make their escape at the lower 
end of the shield, which is either slightly elevated or notched at 
this part. They then move with considerable activity, and dis- 
perse themselves over the young shoots or leaves. The shape of 
the young Coccus is much like that of its parent, but the body is 
of a paler color and more thin and flattened. Its six short legs 
and its slender beak are visible under a magnifier. Some are 
covered with a mealy powder, as the Coccus Cacti, or cochenille 
of commerce, and the Coccus Adonidum, or mealy bug of our 
green-houses. Others are hairy or woolly ; but most of them are 
naked and dark colored. These young lice insert their beaks 
into the bark or leaves, and draw from the cellular substance the 



* It was drawn up bj? me in the year 1828, and published in the seventh volume 
of the " New England Farmer", p. 18G - 187. 



200 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

sap that nourishes them. Reaumur observed the ground quite 
moist under peach-trees infested with bark-lice, which was caused 
by the dripping of the sap from the numerous punctures made by 
these insects. While they continue their exhausting suction of 
sap, they increase in size, and during this time are in what is call- 
ed the larva state. When this is completed, the insects will be 
found to be of different magnitudes, some much larger than the 
others, and they then prepare for a change that is about to ensue 
in their mode of life, by emitting from the under-side of their 
bodies numerous little white downy threads, which are fastened, in 
a radiated manner, around their bodies to the bark, and serve to 
confine them securely in their places. After becoming thus fixed 
they remain apparently inanimate ; but under these lifeless scales 
the transformation of the insect is conducted ; with this remark- 
able difference, that, in a few days the large ones contrive to 
break up and throw off, in four or five flakes, their outer scaly 
coats, and reappear in a very similar form to that which they be- 
fore had ; the smaller ones, on the contrary, continue under their 
outer skins, which serve instead of cocoons, and from which they 
seem to shrink and detach themselves, and then become perfect 
pupse, the rudiments of wings, antennae, feet, &c., being discov- 
erable on raising the shells. If we follow the progress of these 
small lice, which are to produce the males, we shall see, in pro- 
cess of time, a pair of threads and the tips of the wings protruding 
beneath the shell at its lower elevated part, and through this little 
fissure the perfect insect at length backs out. After the larger 
lice have become fixed and have thrown off their outer coats, they 
enter upon the pupa or chrysalis state, which continues for a 
longer or shorter period according to the species. But when 
they have become mature, they do not leave the skins or shells 
covering their bodies, which continue flexible for a time. These 
larger insects are the females, and are destined to remain im- 
movable, and never change their place after they have once be- 
come stationary. The male is exceedingly small in comparison 
to the female, and is provided with only two wings, which are 
usually very large, and lie flatly on the top of the body. After 
the insects have paired, the body of the female increases in sfze, 
or becomes quite convex, for a time, and ever afterwards remains 



HEMIPTERA. 201 

without alteration ; but serves to shelter the eggs which are to 
give birth to her future offspring. These eggs, when matured, 
pass under the body of the mother, and the latter by degrees 
shrinks more and more till nothing is left but the dry outer convex 
skin, and the insect perishes on the spot. Sometimes the insect's 
body is not large enough to cover all her eggs, in which case she 
beds them in a considerable quantity of the down that issues from 
the under or hinder part of her body. There are several broods 
of some species in the year ; of the bark-louse of the apple-tree 
at least two are produced in one season. It is probable that the 
insects of the second or last brood pair in the autumn, after which 
the males die, but the females survive the winter, and lay their 
eggs in the following spring. 

Young apple-trees, and the extremities of the limbs of older 
trees are very much subject to the attacks of a small species of 
bark-louse. The limbs and smooth parts of the trunks are some- 
times completely covered with these insects, and present a very 
singularly wrinkled and rough appearance from the bodies which 
are crowded closely together. In the winter these insects are 
torpid, and apparently dead. They measure about one tenth of 
an inch in length, are of an oblong oval shape, gradually decreas- 
ing to a point at one end, and are of a brownish color very near to 
that of the bark of the tree. These insects resemble in shape one 
which was described by Reaumur* in 1738, who found it on the 
elm in France, and GeofFroy named the insect Coccus arhorum 
linearis, while Gmelin called it conchiformis. This, or one much 
like it, is very abundant upon apple-trees in England, as we learn 
from Dr. Shawf and Mr. Kirbyij: ; and Mr. Rennie§ states that he 
found it in great plenty on currant-bushes. It is highly probable 
that we have received this insect from Europe, but it is some- 
what doubtful whether our apple-tree bark-louse be identical with 
the species found by Reaumur on the elm ; and the doubt seems 
to be justified by the difference in the trees and in the habits of 
the insects, our species being gregarious, and that of the elm 

*Memoires, Vol. IV. p. 69, Plate 5, figs. 5, 6, 7. 
t General Zoology, Vol. VI., Part I. p. 196. 
X Introduction to Entomology, Vol. I. p. 201. 
§ Insect Transformations, p. 92. 

26 



202 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

nearly solitary. It is true that on some of our indigenous forest- 
trees bark-lice of nearly the same form and appearance have been 
observed ; but it is by no means clear that they are of the same 
species as those on the apple-tree. The first account that we 
have of the occurrence of bark-lice on apple-trees, in this country, 
is a communication by Mr. Enoch Perley, of Bridgetown, Maine, 
written in 1794, and published among the early papers of the 
Massachusetts Agricultural Society*. These insects have now 
become extremely common, and infest our nurseries and young 
trees to a very great extent. In the spring the eggs are readily 
to be seen on raising the little muscle-shaped scales beneath 
which they are concealed. These eggs are of a white color, and 
in shape nearly like those of snakes. Every shell contains from 
thirty to forty of them, imbedded in a small quantity of whitish 
friable down. They begin to hatch about the 25th of May, and 
finish about the 10th of June, according to Mr. Perley. The 
young, on their first appearance, are nearly white, very minute, 
and nearly oval in form. In about ten days they become station- 
ary, and early in June throw out a quantity of bluish white down, 
soon after which their transformations are completed, and the 
females become fertile, and deposit their eggs. These, it seems, 
are hatched in the course of the summer, and the young come to 
their growth and provide for a new brood before the ensuing winter. 
Among the natural means which are provided to check the 
increase of these bark-lice, are birds, many of which, espe- 
cially those of the genera Parus and Regulus, containing the chick- 
adee and our wrens, devour great quantities of these lice. I have 
also found that these insects are preyed upon by internal parasites, 
minute ichneumon flies, and the holes (which are as small as if 
made with a fine needle), through which these little insects come 
forth, may be seen on the backs of a great many of the lice 
which have been destroyed by their intestine foes. The best ap- 
plication for the destruction of the lice is a wash made of two 
parts of soft soap and eight of water, with which is to be mixed 
lime enough to bring it to the consistence of thick white-wash. 
This is to be put upon the trunks and limbs of the trees with a 

• See Papers for 1796, p. 32. 



HEMIPTERA. 203 

brush, and as high as practicable, so as to cover the whole sur- 
face, and fill all the cracks in the bark. The proper time for 
washing over the trees is in the early part of June, when the in- 
sects are young and tender. These insects may also be killed by 
using in the same way a solution of two pounds of potash in seven 
quarts of water, or a pickle consisting of a quart of common salt 
in two gallons of water. 

There has been found on the apple and pear tree another kind 
of bark-louse, which differs from the foregoing in many important 
particulars, and approaches nearest to a species inhabiting the 
aspen in Sweden, of which a description has been given by Dal- 
man in the " Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences of 
Stockholm", * for the year 1825, under the name of Coccus cryp- 
togamus. This species is of the kind in which the body of the 
female is not large enough to cover her eggs, for the protection 
whereof another provision is made, consisting, in this species, of a 
kind of membranous shell, of the color and consistence almost of 
paper. In the autunm and throughout the winter, these insects 
are seen in a dormant state, and of two different forms and sizes 
on the bark of the trees. The larger ones measure less than a 
tenth of an inch in length, and have the form of a common oyster 
shell, being broad at the hinder extremity, but tapering towards 
the other, which is surmounted by a little oval brownish scale. 
The small ones, which are not much more than half the length of 
the others, are of a very long oval shape, or almost four sided 
with the ends rounded ; and one extremity is covered by a minute 
oval dark colored scale. These little shell-like bodies are clus- 
tered together in great numbers, are of a white color and membra- 
nous texture, and serve as cocoons to shelter the insects while 
they are undergoing their transformations. The large ones are 
the pupa-cases or cocoons of the female, beneath which the eggs 
are laid ; and the small ones are the cases of the males, and differ 
from those of the females not only in size and shape, but also in 
being of a purer white color, and in having an elevated ridge pass- 
ing down the middle. The minute oval dark-colored scales on 
one of the ends of these white cases are the skins of the lice while 

* Kongl. Vetenskapa Academ. Nya Handlingar. 



204 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

they were in the young or larva state, and the white shells are 
probably formed in the same way as the down which exudes from 
the bodies of other bark-lice, but which in these assumes a regular 
shape, varying according to the sex, and becoming membranous 
after it is formed. Not having seen these insects in a living state, 
I have not been able to trace their progress, and must therefore 
refer to Dalman's memoir above mentioned, for such particulars as 
tend to illustrate the remaining history of this species. The body 
of the female insect, which is covered and concealed by the outer 
case above described, is minute, of an oval form, wrinkled at the 
sides, flattened above, and of a reddish color. By means of her 
beak, which is constantly thrust into the bark, she imbibes the 
sap, by which she is nourished ; she undergoes no change, and 
never emerges from her habitation. The male becomes a chry- 
salis or pupa, and about the middle of July completes its transfor- 
mations, makes its escape from its case, which it leaves at the 
hinder extremity, and the wings with which it is provided are re- 
versed over its head during the operation, and are the last to be 
extricated. The perfect male is nearly as minute as a point, but 
a powerful magnifier shows its body to be divided into segments, 
and endued with all the important parts and functions of a living 
animal. To the unassisted eye, says Dalman, it appears only as 
a red atom, but it is furnished with a pair of long whitish wings, 
long antennae or horns, six legs with their respective joints, and 
two bristles terminating the tail. This minute insect perforates 
the middle of the case covering the female, and thus celebrates its 
nuptials with its invisible partner. The latter subsequently de- 
posits her eggs and dies. In due time the young are hatched and 
leave the case, under which they were fostered, by a little crevice 
at its hinder part. These young lice, which I have seen, are 
very small, of a pale yellowish brown color, and of an oval shape, 
very flat, and appearing like minute scales. They move about for 
a while, at length become stationary, increase in size, and in due 
time the whitish shells are produced, and the included insects pass 
from the larva to the pupa state. The means for destroying these 
insects are the same as those recommended for the extermination 
of the previous species. 

Many years ago, when on a visit from home, I observed on a 



HEMIPTERA. 205 

fine native grape-vine, that was trained against the side of a house, 
great numbers of reddish brown bark-Hce, of a globular form, and 
about half as large as a small pea, arranged in lines on the stems. 
An opportunity for further examination of this species did not oc- 
cur till the last summer, when I was led to the discovery of a iew 
of these lice on my Isabella grape-vines, by seeing the ants as- 
cending and descending the stems. Upon careful search I dis- 
covered the lice, which were nearly of the color of the bark of the 
vine, partly imbedded in a little crevice of the bark, and arranged 
one behind another in a line. They drew great quantities of sap, 
as was apparent by their exudations, by which the ants were 
attracted. Further observations were arrested by a fire which 
consumed the house and the vines that were trained to it. 



206 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 

Caterpillars. — Butterflies. Skippers. — Hawk-Moths, ^gerians or 
Boring-Caterpillars. Glaucopidians. — Moths.— Spinners. Lithosians.-- 
Tiger-Moths. Ermine-Moths. Tdssock-Moths. — Lackey-Moths. Lap- 
pet-Moths. — Saturnians. — Ceratocampians. — Carpenter-Moths. — 
Psvchians. — Notodontians. — Owl-Moths. Cut-Worms. — Geometers, 
OR Span-Worms, and Canker-Worms. — Delta-Moths. — Leaf-Rollers. 
Bud-Moths. Fruit-Moths. — Bee-Moths. Corn-Moths. Clothes- 
Moths. — Feather-winged-Moths. 

There are perhaps no insects which are so commonly and so 
universally destructive as caterpillars ; they are inferior only to 
locusts in voracity, and equal or exceed them in their powers of 
increase, and in general are far more widely spread over vegeta- 
tion. Caterpillars are the young of butterflies and of moths; and 
of these, five hundred species, which are natives of Massachu- 
setts, are already known to me, and probably there are at least as 
many more kinds to be discovered within the limits of this Com- 
monwealth. As each female usually lays from two hundred to 
five hundred eggs, one thousand different kinds of butterflies and 
moths will produce, on an average, three hundred thousand cater- 
pillars ; if one half of this number, when arrived at maturity, are 
females, they will give forty-five millions of caterpillars in the 
second, and six thousand seven hundred and fifty millions in the 
third generation. These data suffice to show that the actual num- 
ber of these insects, existing at any one time, must be far beyond 
the limits of calculation. The greater part of caterpillars subsist 
on vegetable food, and especially on the leaves of plants ; hence 
their injuries to vegetation are immense, and are too often forced 
upon our notice. Some devour the solid wood of trees, some 
live only in the pith of plants, and some confine themselves to 
grains and seeds. Certain species attack our woollens and furs, 
thereby doing us much injury ; even leather, meat, wax, flour, 
and lard afford nourishment to particular kinds of caterpillars. 

Caterpillars vary greatly in form and appearance ; but, in gen- 
eral, their bodies are more or less cylindrical, and composed of 
twelve rings or segments, with a shelly head, and from ten to six- 



LEPIDOPTERA. 207 

teen legs. The first three pairs of legs are covered with a shelly- 
skin, are jointed, and tapering, and are armed at the end with a 
little claw, the other legs are thick and fleshy, without joints, but 
elastic or contractile, and are generally surrounded at the ex- 
tremity by numerous minute hooks. There are six very small 
eyes on each side of the head, two short antennae, and strong jaws 
or nippers, placed at the sides of the mouth, so as to open and 
shut sidewise. In the middle of the lower lip is a little conical 
tube, from which the insects spin the silken threads that are used 
by them in making their nests and their cocoons, and in various 
other purposes of their economy. Two long and slender bags, 
in the interior of their bodies, and ending in the spinning tube, 
contain the matter of the silk. This is a sticky fluid, and it flows 
from the spinner in a fine stream, which hardens into a thread so 
soon as it comes to the air. Some caterpillars make but very 
little silk ; others, such as the silk-worm and the apple-tree cater- 
pillar, produce it in great abundance. 

Some caterpillars herd together in great numbers, and pass the 
early period of their existence in society ; and of these there are 
species which unite in their labors, and construct tents serving as 
a common habitation in which they live, or to which they retire 
occasionally for shelter. Others pass their lives in solitude, 
either exposed to the light and air, or sheltered in leaves folded 
over their bodies, or form for themselves silken sheaths, which 
are either fixed or portable. Some make their abodes in the 
stems of plants, or mine in the pulpy substance of leaves ; and 
others conceal themselves in the ground, from which they issue 
only when in search of food. 

Caterpillars usually change their skins about four times before 
they come to their growth. At length they leave off eating en- 
tirely, and prepare for their first transformation. Most of them, 
at this period, spin around their bodies a sort of shroud or co- 
coon, into which some interweave the hairs of their own bodies, 
and some employ, in the same way, leaves, bits of wood, or even 
grains of earth. Other caterpillars suspend themselves, in various 
ways, by silken threads, without enclosing their bodies in co- 
coons ; and again, there are others which merely enter the earth 
to undergo their transformations. 



208 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

When the caterpillar has thus prepared itself for the approach- 
ing change, by repeated exertions and struggles it bursts open the 
skin on the top of its back, withdraws the forepart of its body, 
and works the skin backwards till the hinder extremity is extri- 
cated. It then no longer appears in the caterpillar form, but has 
become a pupa or chrysalis, shorter than the caterpillar, and at 
first sight apparently without a head or limbs. On close exami- 
nation, however, there may be found traces of a head, tongue, 
antennae, wings, and legs, closely pressed to the body, to which 
these parts are cemented by a kind of varnish. Some chrysalids 
are angular, or furnished with little protuberances ; but most of 
them are smooth, rounded at one end, and tapering at the other 
extremity. While in the pupa state, these insects take no food, 
and remain perfectly at rest, or only move the hinder extremity of 
the body when touched. After a while, however, the chrysalis 
begins to swell and contract, till the skin is rent over the back, 
and from the fissure there issues the head, antennae, and body of 
a butterfly or moth. When it first emerges from its pupa-skin the 
insect is soft, moist, and weak, and its wings are small and shrivel- 
ed ; soon, however, the wings stretch out to their full dimensions, 
the superfluous moisture of the body passes off, and the limbs ac- 
quire their proper firmness and elasticity. 

The conversion of a caterpillar to a moth or butterfly is a 
transformation of the most complete kind. The form of the body 
is altered, some of the legs disappear, the others and the antennae 
become much longer than before, and four wings are acquired. 
Moreover the mouth and digestive organs undergo a total change ; 
for the insect, after its final transformation, is no longer fitted to 
subsist upon the same gross aliment as it did in the caterpillar 
state ; its powerful jaws have disappeared, and instead thereof we 
find a slender tongue, by means of which liquid nourishment is 
conveyed to the mouth of the insect, and its stomach becomes 
capable of digesting only water and the honeyed juice of flowers. 

Ceasing to increase in size, and destined to live but a short 
time after their final transformation, butterflies and moths spend 
this brief period of their existence in flitting from flower to flower 
and regaling themselves with their sweets, or in slaking their 
thirst with dew or with the water left standing in puddles after 



LEPIDOPTERA. 209 

showers, in pairing with their mates, and in laying their eggs ; after 
which they die a natural death, or fall a prey to their numerous 
enemies. 

These insects belong to an order called Lepidoptera, which 
means scaly wings ; for the mealy powder with which their wings 
are covered, when seen under a powerful microscope, is found to 
consist of little scales, lapping over each other like the scales of 
fishes, and implanted into the skin of the wings by short stems. 
The body of these insects is also more or less covered with the 
same kind of scales, together with hair or down in some species. 
The tongue consists of two tubular threads placed side by side, 
and thus forming an instrument for suction, which, when not in 
use, is rolled up spirally beneath the head, and is more or less 
covered and concealed on each side by a little scaly or hairy 
jointed feeler. The shoulders or wing-joints of the fore-wings 
are covered, on each side, by a small triangular piece, forming a 
kind of epaulette, or shoulder-cover ; and between the head and 
the thorax is a narrow piece, clothed with scales or hairs sloping 
backwards, which may be called the collar. The wings have a 
few branching veins, generally forming one or two large meshes 
on the middle. The legs are six in number, though only four are 
used in walking by some butterflies, in which the first pair are 
very short and are folded like a tippet on the breast ; and the feet 
are five-jointed, and are terminated, each, by a pair of claws. 

It would be difficult, and indeed impossible, to arrange the Lep- 
idopterous insects according to their forms, appearance, and habits, 
in the caterpillar state, because the caterpillars of many of them 
are as yet unknown ; and therefore it is found expedient to class- 
ify them mostly according to the characters furnished by them in 
the winged state. 

We may first divide the Lepidoptera into three great sections, 
called butterflies, hawk-moths, and moths, corresponding to the 
genera Papilio^ Sphinx, and Phalana of Linnaeus. 

The Butterflies (Papiliones) have threadlike antennae, which 
are knobbed at the end ; the fore-wings in some, and all the wings 
in the greater number, are elevated perpendicularly and turned 
back to back, when at rest ; they have generally two little spurs 
on the hind-legs ; and they fly by day only. 
27 



210 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The Hawk-Moths (Sphinges) generally have the antennae 
thickened in the middle, and tapering at each end, and most often 
hooked at the tip ; the wings are narrow in proportion to their 
length, and are confined together by a bristle or bunch of stiff 
hairs on the shoulder of each hind-wing, which is retained by a 
corresponding hook on the under-side of each fore-wing ; all the 
wings, when at rest, are more or less inclined like a roof, the up- 
per ones covering the lower wings ; there are two pairs of spurs 
on the hind-legs ; a few fly by day, but the greater number in the 
morning and evening twilight. 

In the Moths (PhalcBnce) the antennae are neither knobbed at 
the end nor thickened in the middle, but taper from the base to 
the extremity, and are either naked, like a bristle, or are feathered 
on each side ; the wings are confined together by bristles and 
hooks, the first pair covering the hind-wings, and are more or less 
sloping when at rest ; and there are two pairs of spurs to the hind- 
legs. These insects fly mostly by night. 

I. BUTTERFLIES. {Papiliones.) 

Besides the characters already given, which distinguish this sec- 
tion of the Lepidoptera, it may be stated that their caterpillars 
always have sixteen legs, namely two, which are tapering, jointed, 
and scaly, to each of the first three segments behind the head, 
and a pair of thick fleshy legs, without joints, to all the remaining 
segments, except the fourth, fifth, tenth, and eleventh. 

The butterflies are divisible into two tribes ; namely, the true 
butterflies, which carry all their wings upright when at rest ; and 
the skippers, which have only the fore-wings upright, the hind- 
wings being nearly horizontal when at rest. 

1. Butterflies. 

In these insects, all the wings are erect when at rest, and the an- 
tennae are knobbed, but never hooked, at the end. Their cater- 
pillars have a head of moderate size, suspend themselves by 
the tail when about to transform, and are not enclosed in co- 
coons. Some of these butterflies have the six legs all equally fit- 
ted for walking ; their caterpillars are more or less cylindrical, and 



LEPIDOPTERA. 211 

secure themselves by a transverse band, as well as by the tail, 
previously to their transformation to chrysalids ; and the latter are 
angular. All these characters exist in the following species. 

In the month of June, there may be found, on the leaves of the 
parsley and carrot, certain caterpillars, more commonly called pars- 
ley-worms, which are somewhat swelled towards the forepart of 
the body, but taper a little behind. When first hatched, they are 
less than one tenth of an inch in length, are of a black color, with a 
broad white band across the middle, and another on the tail ; and 
the back is studded with little black projecting points. After they 
have increased in size and have cast their coats, it is found that 
the white band covers only the sixth and seventh segments, that 
the black projecting points spring from spots of an orange color, 
and on the lower part of the sides is a row of white spots, two 
more spots of the same color on the top of the first segment, and 
one larger spot on the tail. These caterpillars alter in color and 
appearance with each successive moulting, and, before they are 
half grown, the projecting points and the white band and spots en- 
tirely disappear, the skin becomes perfectly smooth and of a deli- 
cate apple-green color, rather paler at the sides of the body, and 
whitish beneath, and on each segment there is a transverse band 
consisting of black and yellow spots alternately arranged. When 
touched, they thrust forth, from a slit in the first segment of the 
body just behind the head, a pair of soft orange-colored horns, 
growing together at the bottom, and somewhat like the letter Y 
in form. The horns are scent-organs, and give out a strong and 
disagreeable smell, perceptible at some distance, and seem to be 
designed to defend the caterpillars from the annoying attacks of 
flies and ichneumons. These caterpillars usually come to their 
full size between the tenth and twentieth of July, and then meas- 
ure about one inch and a half in length. After this, they leave off 
eating, desert the plants, and each one seeks some sheltered spot, 
such as the side of a building or fence, or the trunk of a tree, 
where it prepares for its transformation. It first spins a little web 
or tuft of silk against the surface whereon it is resting, and en- 
tangles the hooks of its hindmost feet in it, so as to fix them se- 
curely to the spot ; it then proceeds to make a loop or girth of 
many silken threads bent into the form of the letter U, the ends 



212 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

of which are fastened to the surface on which it rests on each side 
of the middle of its body ; and under this, when finished, it passes 
its head, and gradually works the loop over its back, so as to sup- 
port the body and prevent it from falling downwards. Though it 
generally prefers a vertical surface on which to fasten itself in an 
upright posture, it sometimes selects the under-side of a limb or 
of a projecting ledge, where it hangs suspended, nearly horizon- 
tally, by its feet and the loop. Within twenty-four hours after it 
has taken its station, the caterpillar casts off its caterpillar-skin and 
becomes a chrysalis, or pupa, of a pale green, ochre-yellow, 
or ash-gray color, with two short earlike projections above the 
head, just below which, on the upper part of the back, is a little 
prominence like a pug nose. The chrysalis hangs in the same 
way as the caterpillar, and remains in this state from nine to fif- 
teen days, according to the temperature of the atmosphere, cold 
and wet weather having a tendency to prolong the period. When 
this is terminated, the skin of the chrysalis bursts open, and a but- 
terfly issues from it, clings to the empty shell till its crumpled and 
drooping wings have extended to their full dimensions, and have 
become dried, upon which it flies away in pursuit of companions 
and food. 

This butterfly is the Papilio Asterias of Cramer. It is of a 
black color, with a double row of yellow dots on the back ; a 
broad band, composed of yellow spots, across the wings, and a 
row of yellow spots near the hind margin ; the hind-wings are 
tailed, and have seven blue spots between the yellow band and the 
outer row of yellow spots, and, near their hinder angle, an eye-like 
spot of an orange color with a black centre ; and the spots of 
the under-side are tawny orange. The female differs from the 
male, above described, in having only a few small and distinct 
yellow spots on the upper side of the wings. The wings of this 
butterfly expand from three and a half to four inches. 

During the month of July, the Asterias butterflies may be seen 
in great abundance upon flowers, and particularly on those of the 
sweet-scented Phlox. They lay their eggs, in this and the fol- 
lowing month, on various umbellate plants, placing them singly on 
different parts of the leaves and stems. I have found the cater- 
pillars on the parsley, carrot, parsnip, celery, anise, dill, caraway, 



LEPIDOPTERA. 213 

and fennel of our gardens, as well as on the conium, ciciita, slum, 
and other native plants of the same natural family, which originally 
constituted the appropriate food of these insects, before the exotic 
species furnished them with a greater variety and abundance. 
Their injury to these cultivated plants is by no means inconsider- 
able ; they not only eat the leaves, but are particularly fond of the 
blossoms, and young seeds. I have taken twenty caterpillars on 
one plant of parsley which was going to seed. The eggs laid in 
July, and August, are hatched soon afterwards, and the caterpil- 
lars come to their growth towards the end of September, or the be- 
ginning of October ; they then suspend themselves, become chrys- 
alids, in which state they remain during the winter, and are not 
transformed to butterflies till the last of May or the beginning of 
June in the following year. 

I know of no method so effectual for destroying these caterpil- 
lars as gathering them by hand and crushing them. An expert 
person will readily detect them by their ravages on the plants 
which they inhabit ; and a few minutes devoted, every day or two, 
to a careful search in the garden, during the season of their depre- 
dations, will suffice to remove them entirely. 

In Europe there are several kinds of caterpillars which live ex- 
clusively on the cruciferous or oleraceous plants, such as the cab- 
bage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radish, turnip, and mustard, 
and oftentimes do considerable injury to them. The prevailing 
color of these caterpillars is green, and that of the butterflies 
produced from them, white. They belong to a genus called 
Pontia; in which thejiind-wings are not scolloped nor tailed, but 
are rounded and entire on the edges, and are grooved on the inner 
edge to receive the abdomen ; the feelers are rather slender, but 
project beyond the head ; and the antennae have a short flattened 
knob ; their caterpillars are nearly cylindrical, taper a very little 
towards each end, and are sparingly clothed with short down, 
which requires a microscope to be distinctly seen ; they suspend 
themselves by the tail and a transverse loop ; and their chrysalids 
are angular at the sides, and pointed at both ends. 

In the northern and western parts of Massachusetts there is a 
white butterfly, which, in all its states, agrees with the foregoing 
characters. It is the Pontia oleracea^ potherb Pontia, or white 



214 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

butterfly, and was first described by me in the year 1829, in the 
seventh volume of the " New England Farmer."* About the 
last of May, and the beginning of June, it is seen fluttering over 
cabbage, radish, and turnip beds, and patches of mustard, for the 
purpose of depositing its eggs. These are fastened to the under- 
sides of the leaves, and but seldom more than three or four are 
left upon one leaf. The eggs are yellowish, nearly pear-shaped, 
longitudinally ribbed, and are one fifteenth of an inch in length. 
They are hatched in a week or ten days after they are laid, 
and the caterpillars produced from them attain their full size when 
three weeks old, and then measure about one inch and a half in 
length. Being of a pale green color, they are not readily distin- 
guished from the ribs of the leaves beneath which they live. 
They do not devour the leaf at its edge, but begin indiscrimi- 
nately upon any part of its under-side, through which they eat irre- 
gular holes. When they have completed the feeding stage, they 
quit the plants, and retire beneath palings, or the edges of stones, 
or into the interstices of walls, where they spin a little tuft of silk, 
entangle the hooks of their hindmost feet in it, and then proceed 
to form a loop to sustain the forepart of the body in a horizontal 
or vertical position. Bending its head on one side, the caterpillar 
fastens to the surface, beneath the middle of its body, a silken 
thread, which it carries across its back and secures on the other 
side, and repeats this operation till the united threads have formed 
a band or loop of sufficient strength. On the next day it casts off 
the caterpillar skin, and becomes a chrysalis. This is sometimes 
of a pale green, and sometimes of a white color, regularly and 
finely dotted with black ; the sides of the body are angular, the 
head is surmounted by a conical tubercle, and over the forepart 
of the body, corresponding to the thorax of the included butterfly, 
is a thin projection, having in profile some resemblance to a Ro- 
man nose. The chrysalis state lasts eleven days, at the expira- 
tion of which the insect comes forth a butterfly. The wings are 
white, but dusky next to the body ; the tips of the upper ones are 
yellowish beneath, with dusky veins ; the under-side of the hinder 
wings is straw-colored, with broad dusky veins, and the angles 

* Page 402. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 215 

next to the body are deep yellow ; the back is black, and the 
antennae are blackish, with narrow white rings, and ochre-yellow 
at the tips. The wings expand about two inches. I have seen 
these butterflies in great abundance during the latter part of July, 
and the beginning of August, in pairs, or laying their eggs for a 
second brood of caterpillars. The chrysalids produced from this 
autumnal brood survive the winter, and the butterflies are not dis- 
closed from them till May or June. lu gardens or fields infested 
by the caterpillars, boards, placed horizontally an inch or two 
above the surface of the soil, will be resorted to by them when 
they are about to change to chrysalids, and here it will be easy to 
find, collect, and destroy them, either in the caterpillar or chrysa- 
lis state. The butterflies also may easily be taken by a large and 
deep bag-net of muslin, attached to a handle of five or six feet in 
length ; for they fly low and lazily, especially when busy in laying 
their eggs. In Europe the caterpillars of the white butterflies are 
eaten by the larger titmouse (Parus major), and probably our own 
titmouse or chickadee, with other insect-eating birds, will be 
found equally useful, if properly protected. 

We have several kinds of small six-footed butterflies, some of 
which are found, during the greater part of the summer, in the 
fields and around the edges of woods, flying low and frequently 
alighting, and oftentimes collected together in little swarms on the 
flowers of the clover, mint, and other sweet-scented plants. 
Their caterpillars secure themselves by the hind feet and a loop, 
when about to transform ; but they are very short and almost 
oval, flat below and more or less convex above, with a small head, 
which is concealed under the first ring ; and the feet, which are six- 
teen in number, are so short, that these caterpillars in moving seem 
to glide rather than creep. The chrysalids are short and thick, 
with the under-side flat, the upper side very convex, and both ex- 
tremities rounded or obtuse. They belong to a little group which 
may be called Lycenians (Lyc^nad^), from the principal genus 
included in it. 

The heads of the common hop are frequently eaten by the little 
green and downy caterpillars of a very pretty butterfly, which has 
been mistaken for the Thecla Favonius, figured in Mr. Abbot's 
" Natural History of the Insects of Georgia" ; but it differs from 



216 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

it in so many respects, that I do not hesitate to give it another 
name, and will therefore call it the hop-vine Thecla, Thecla Hu- 
muli.* The wings on the upper side are dusky brown, with a 
tint of blue gray, and, in the males, there is an oval darker spot 
near the front edge ; the hind-wings have two short, thread-like 
tails, the inner one the longest, and tipped with white ; along the 
hind-margin of these same wings is a row of little pale blue spots, 
interrupted by a large orange-red crescent enclosing a small black 
spot ; the wings beneath are slate-gray, with two wavy streaks of 
brown edged on one side with white, and on the hind-wings an 
orange colored spot near the hind-angle, and a larger spot of the 
same color enclosing a black dot just before the tails. It expands 
one inch and one tenth. 

Some butterflies have the first pair of legs so much shorter 
than the others, that they cannot be used in walking, and are 
folded on the breast like a tippet. Their caterpillars, when about 
to transform, do not make a loop to support the forepart of the 
body, but suspend themselves vertically by the hindmost feet. 
As they all secure themselves pretty much in the same way, it 
may be proper to explain the process. Having finished eating, 
the caterpillar wanders about till it has discovered a suitable situa- 
tion in which to pass through its transformations. This may be 
the under-side of a branch or of a leaf, or any other horizontal 
object beneath which it can find sufficient room for its future oper- 
ations. Here it spins a web or tuft of silk, fastening it securely 
to the surface beneath which it is resting, entangles the hooks of 
its hindmost feet among the threads, and then contracts its body 
and lets itself drop so as to hang suspended by the hind-feet alone, 
the head and forepart of the body being curved upwards in the 
form of a hook. After some hours, the skin over the bent part of 
the body is rent, the forepart of the chrysalis protrudes from the 
fissure, and, by a wriggling kind of motion, the caterpillar-skin is 
slipped backwards till only the extremity of the chrysalis remains 
attached to it. The chrysalis has now to release itself entirely 
from the caterpillar-skin, which is gathered in folds around its tail, 

* M. Boisduval has figured and described this species under the name of Thecla 
Favonius, in his " Histoire des Lepidopteres de TAmerique Septentrionale." 



LEPIDOPTERA. 217 

and to make itself fast to the silken tuft by the minute hooks with 
which the hinder extremity is provided. Not having the assist- 
ance of a transverse loop to support its body while it disengages 
its tail, the attempt would seem perilous in the extreme, if not im- 
possible. Without having witnessed the operation, we should 
suppose that the insect would inevitably fall, while endeavouring to 
accomplish its object. But, although unprovided with ordinary 
limbs, it is not left without the means to extricate itself from its 
present difficulty. The hinder and tapering part of the chrysalis 
consists of several rings or segments, so joined together as to be 
capable of moving from side to side upon each other; and these 
supply to it the place of hands. By bending together two of these 
rings near the middle of the body, the chrysalis seizes, in the 
crevice between them, a portion of the empty caterpillar-skin, and 
clings to it so as to support itself while it withdraws its tail from 
the remainder of the skin. It is now wholly out of the skin, to 
which it hangs suspended by nipping together the rings of its 
body ; but, as the chrysalis is much shorter than the caterpillar, it 
is yet at some distance from the tuft of silk, to which it must 
climb before it can fix in it the hooks of its hinder extremity. To 
do this, it extends the rings of its body as far apart as possible, 
then, bending together two of them above those by which it is 
suspended, it catches hold of the skin higher up, at the same time 
letting go below, and, by repeating this process with different 
rings in succession, it at length reaches the tuft of silk, entangles 
its hooks among the threads, and then hangs suspended without 
further risk of falling. It next contrives to dislodge the cast cat- 
erpillar-skin by whirling itself around repeatedly, till the old skin 
is finally loosened from its attachment and falls to the ground. 
The whole of this operation, difficult as it may seem, is performed 
in the space of a very few minutes, and rarely does the insect fail 
to accomplish it successfully and safely. 

The caterpillars of many of the four-footed butterflies are spiny, 
or have their backs armed with numerous projecting points ; 
these, in some, are short, and soft, and beset all around with very 
small stiff hairs, in others they are long, hard, and sharp prickles, 
which generally are furnished whh little stiff branches. The but- 
terflies have the knobs of the antennae short and broad ; the feelers 
28 



218 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are rather long, and placed close together, at the base at least ; 
the inner margin of the hind-wings is folded downwards, and 
grooved for the reception of the body ; the central mesh of these 
wings is not closed behind ; and the nails of the four hind-feet are 
divided so as to appear double. This group may be called Vanes- 
sians (Vanessiad^). 

In the butterflies belonging to the genus Vanessa, the wings 
are jagged or tailed on the hind-edges. The under-side of the 
hind-wings, in many, is marked with a golden or silvery character 
in the middle ; the feelers are long, curving, and contiguous, and 
form a kind of projecting beak. The head of the chrysalis is 
deeply notched or furnished with two ear-like prominences ; the 
sides are very angular ; on the middle of the thorax there is a thin 
projection, in profile somewhat like a Roman nose ; and on the 
back are two rows of very sharp tubercles of a golden color. The 
caterpillars are cylindrical, and armed with branching spines ; 
they live in company, at least during the early period of their 
existence, and do not conceal themselves under a web or within a 
folded leaf. 

Vanessa Antiopa. L. Antiopa butterfly. 

Wings purplish brown above, with a broad bufF-yellow margin, 
near the inner edge of which there is a row of pale blue spots. 
Expands from 3 to 3| inches. 

This butterfly passes the winter in some sheltered place in a 
partially torpid state. I have found it in mid-winter sticking to the 
rafters of a barn, and in the crevices of walls and stone-heaps, 
huddled together in great numbers, with the wings doubled to- 
gether above the back, and apparently benumbed and lifeless ; but 
it soon recovers its activity on being exposed to warmth. It comes 
out of its winter quarters very early in spring, often before the 
snow has entirely left the ground, but with ragged and faded 
wings ; and may be seen sporting in warm and sheltered spots in 
the beginning of March, and through the months of April and 
May. Wilson, in his beautiful lines on the blue-bird, alludes to 
its early coming in the spring, 

" When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing." 



LEPIDOPTERA. 219 

The caterpillars of the Antiopa butterfly hve together in great 
numbers on the poplar, willow, and elm, on which the first broods 
may be found early in June. They are black, minutely dotted 
with white, v»^ith a row of eight dark brick-red spots on the top of 
the back. The head is black and rough with projecting points ; 
the spines, of which there are six or seven on each segment, ex- 
cept the first, are black, stiff, and branched, and the intermediate 
legs are reddish. When fully grown they measure an inch and 
three quarters in length, and appear very formidable with their 
thorny armature, which is doubtless intended to defend them from 
their enemies. It was formerly supposed that they were venom- 
ous, and capable of inflicting dangerous wounds ; and within my 
remembrance many persons were so much alarmed on this account 
as to cut down all the poplar trees around their dwellings. This 
alarm was unfounded ; for, although there are some caterpillars 
that have the power of inflicting venomous wounds with their 
spines and hairs, this is not the case with those of the Antiopa 
butterfly. The only injury which can be laid to their charge, is 
that of despoiling of their foliage some of our most ornamental 
trees, and this is enough to induce us to take all proper measures 
for exterminating the insects, short of destroying the trees that 
they infest. I have sometimes seen them in such profusion on 
the willow and elm, that the limbs bent under their weight ; and 
the long leafless branches, which they had stripped and deserted, 
gave sufficient proof of the voracity of these caterpillars. The 
chrysalis is of a dark brown color, with large tawny spots aroun^ 
the pointed tubercles on the back. The butterflies come forth in 
eleven or twelve days after the insects have entered upon the 
chrysalis state, and this occurs in the beginning of July. A 
second brood of caterpillars is produced in August, and they pass 
through all their changes before winter. 

Vanessa Interrogationis. F. Semicolon butterfly. 

Wings on the upper side tawny orange, with brown spots run- 
ning together on the hinder part, and with black spots in the mid- 
dle ; hind-wings in the male most often black above, except at the 
base, and sometimes of this color in the other sex also ; the edges 
and the tails glossed with reddish white ; under-side of the wings 



220 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

in some rust-red, in others marbled with light and dark brown, 
glossed with reddish white, and with a pale gold-colored semi- 
colon on the middle of the hinder pair. Expands from 2^ to 2| 
inches, or more. 

The paly gold character beneath the hind-wings has much more 
nearly the shape of a semicolon than of a note of interrogation ; for 
which reason I have called this the semicolon butterfly, instead of 
translating the specific name. It first appears in May, and again 
in August and September, and is frequently seen on the wing, in 
warm and sunny places, till the middle of October. The cater- 
pillars live on the American elm and lime trees, and also on the 
hop-vine, and on the latter they sometimes abound to such a de- 
gree as totally to destroy the produce of the plant. In the latter 
part of August the hop-vine caterpillars come to their full growth, 
and suspend themselves beneath the leaves and stems of the plant, 
and change to chrysalids. This fact affords a favorable opportunity 
for destroying the insects in this their stationary and helpless stage, 
at some loss, however, of the produce of the vines, which, when 
the insects have become chrysalids, should be cut down, stripped 
of the fruit that is sufficiently ripened, and then burnt. There is 
probably an early brood of caterpillars in June or July, but I 
have not seen any on the hop-vine before August, the former are 
therefore confined to the elm and other plants in all probability. 
The caterpillar is brownish, variegated with pale yellow, or pale 
yellow variegated with brown, with a yellowish line on each side 
of the body ; the head is rust-red, with two blackish branched 
spines on the top ; and the spines of the body are pale yellow or 
brownish and tipped with black. The chrysalis is ashen brown, 
with the head deeply notched, and surmounted by two conical 
ears, a long and thin nose-like prominence on the thorax, and eight 
silvery spots on the back. The chrysalis state usually lasts from 
eleven to fourteen days ; but the later broods are more tardy in 
their transformations, the butterfly sometimes not appearing in less 
than twenty-six days after the change to the chrysalis. Great 
numbers of the chrysalids are annually destroyed by little maggots 
within them, which, in due time, are transformed to tiny four- 
winged flies {Pteromalus Vanessa), which make their escape by 
eating little holes through the sides of the chrysalis. They are 



LEPIDOPTERA. 221 

ever on the watch to lay their eggs on the caterpillars of this but- 
terfly, and are so small as easily to avoid being wounded by the 
branching spines of their victims. 

Vanessa Comma. Comma butterfly. 

Upper side tawny orange ; fore-wings bordered behind and 
spotted with black ; hind-wings shaded behind with dark brown, 
with two black spots on the middle, and three more in a trans- 
verse line from the front-edge, and a row of bright orange colored 
spots before the hind-margin ; hind-edges of the wings powdered 
with reddish white ; under-side marbled with light and dark 
brown, the hinder wings with a silvery comma in the middle. 

Expands from 2} to 2| inches. 

This butterfly very closely resembles the white C. (C. album) 
of Europe, for which it has probably been mistaken. On a close 
and careful comparison of several specimens of both together, I 
am satisfied that the American Comma is a distinct species, and 
the hinder edges of the wings which are not so deeply indented, 
will at once serve to distinguish it. I have therefore now named 
and described it for the first time. The caterpillar lives upon the 
hop, and, as nearly as I can recollect, has a general resemblance 
to that of the semicolon butterfly. The chrysalis is brownish 
gray, or white variegated with pale brown, and ornamented with 
golden spots ; there are two conical ear-like projections on the 
top of the head, and the prominence on the thorax is shorter and 
thicker than that of the semicolon butterfly, and more like a par- 
rot's beak in shape. The butterflies appear first in the beginning 
of May ; I have obtained them from the chrysalids in the middle 
of July, and on the first of September. 

Vanessa Progne*. F. Progne butterfly. 

Upper side tawny orange ; fore-wings bordered and spotted 
with black ; hind-wings blackish on the posterior half, with two 
black spots before the middle, and a row of small orange-colored 

* Mr. Kirby, whose work on the insects of North America abounds in mistakes, 
has redescribed this old and well-known species under the name of Vanessa C. ar- 
senteum. 



222 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

spots before the hind-margin ; tails and posterior edges of the 
wings powdered with reddish white ; under-side gray, with fine 
blackish streaks, and an angular silvery character somewhat in the 
form of the letter L on the middle of the hind-wings. Expands 
from I-| to 2 1 inches. 

This butterfly appears in August, and probably also at other 
times. Though very much like the preceding in general appear- 
ance, it is readily distinguished from it by the darker color of the 
hind-wings and the angular shape of the silvery character on their 
under-side. This character is very slender, and is sometimes en- 
tirely wanting. I have raised the Progne and Comma butterflies from 
caterpillars which were so much alike, that I am not certain to which 
of them the following description belongs. These caterpillars were 
found on the American elm in August ; they were pale yellow, with 
a reddish colored head, white branching spines tipped with black, 
and a row of four rusty spots on each side of the body. They were 
suspended on the twenty-first and twenty-second of August, 
changed to chrysalids within twenty-four hours, and were trans- 
formed to butterflies sixteen days afterwards. At another time a 
Progne butterfly was obtained from a caterpillar, which I neglect- 
ed to describe, on the eighteenth of August, the chrysalis state 
having continued only eleven days. The chrysalis is brownish 
gray, with silvery spots on the back, a short, thick, and rounded 
nose-like prominence on the thorax, and the two conical double- 
pointed horns or ears on the head, the outer points very short, 
and the inner ones longer and curving inwards. 

2. Skippers. [Hesyeriadce), 

The butterflies of this tribe frequent grassy places, and low 
bushes and thickets, flying but a short distance at a time, with a 
jerking motion, whence they are called skippers by Enghsh 
writers. When they alight, they usually keep the hind-wings ex- 
tended horizontally, and the fore-wings somewhat raised, but 
spreading a little, and not entirely closed, as in other butterflies; 
some of them, however, have all the wings spread open when at 
rest, and there are others in which they are all elevated. Not- 
withstanding this difference in the position of the wings, the Hes- 
perians all have certain characters in common, by which they are 



LEPIDOPTERA. 223 

readily distinguished from other butterflies. Their bodies are 
short and thick, with a large head, and very prominent eyes ; the 
feelers are short, almost square at the end, and thickly clothed 
with hairs, which give them a clumsy appearance ; the antennae 
are short, situated at a considerable distance from each other, and 
in most of these insects, with the knob at the end either curved 
like a hook, or ending with a little point bent to one side ; the legs 
are six in number, and the four hinder shanks are armed with two 
pairs of spurs. Their caterpillars are somewhat spindle-shaped, 
or cylindrical in the middle, and tapering at each extremity, with- 
out spines, and generally naked or merely downy, with a very 
large head and a small neck. They are solitary in their habits, 
and many of them conceal themselves within folded leaves like the 
caterpillars of the thistle and nettle butterflies (Cynthia Cardui 
and titaJanta)^ and undergo their transformations within an en- 
velope of leaves or of fragments of stubble gathered together with 
silken threads. Their chrysalids are generally conical or tapering 
at one end, and rounded, or more rarely pointed, at the other, 
never angular or ornamented with golden spots, but most often 
covered with a bluish white powder or bloom. They are mostly 
fastened by the tail and a few transverse threads, within some 
folded leaves, which are connected together by a loose internal 
web of threads, forming a kind of imperfect cocoon. 

In the skippers, which Dr. Boisduval arranges under the name 
of Eudamns^ the knobs of the antennae are very long, gradually 
taper to a point, and are suddenly bent like a hook in the middle ; 
the front-edge of the fore-wings, in the males, is doubled over ; 
the hind-wings are often tailed, or are furnished with a little pro- 
jection on the hinder angle ; the fringes are spotted ; and all the 
wings are raised when at rest. 

Eudamus Tityrus. F. Tityrus skipper. 

Wings brown ; first pair with a transverse semitransparent 
band across the middle, and a few spots towards the tip, of a 
honey-yellow color ; hind-wings with a short rounded tail on the 
hind angles, and a broad silvery band across the middle of the 
under-side. Expands from 2 to 2^ inches. 

This large and beautiful insect makes its appearance, from the 



224 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

middle of June till after the beginning of July, upon sweet-scented 
flowers, which it visits during the middle of the day. Its flight 
is vigorous and rapid, and its strength is so great that it cannot be 
captured without danger of its being greatly defaced in its strug- 
gles to escape. The females lay their eggs, singly, on the leaves 
of the common locust-tree (Robinia pseudacacia) , and on those of 
the viscid locust {Robinia fiscosa), which is much cultivated here 
as an ornamental tree. The caterpillars are hatched in July, and 
when quite small conceal themselves under a fold of the edge of 
a leaf, which is bent over their bodies and secured by means of 
silken threads. When they become larger they attach two or 
more leaves together, so as to form a kind of cocoon or leafy case 
to shelter them from the weather, and to screen them from the 
prying eyes of birds. The full-grown caterpillar, which attains 
to the length of about two inches, is of a pale green color, trans- 
versely streaked with darker green, with a red neck, a very large 
head roughened with minute tubercles, slightly indented or fur- 
rowed above, and of a dull red color, with a large yellow spot on 
each side of the mouth. Although there may be and often are 
many of these caterpillars on the same tree and branch, yet they 
all live separately within their own cases. One end of the leafy 
case is left open, and from this the insect comes forth to feed. 
They eat only, or mostly, in the night, and keep themselves 
closely concealed by day. These caterpillars are very cleanly in 
their habits, and make no dirt in their habitations, but throw it out 
with a sudden jerk, so that it shall fall at a considerable distance. 
They frequently transform to chrysalids within the same leaves 
which have served them for a habitation, but more often quit the 
trees and construct in some secure place, a cocoon of leaves or 
fragments of stubble, the interior of which is lined with a loose 
web of silk. They remain in their cocoons wi-thout further change 
throughout the winter, and are transformed to butterflies in the 
following summer. The viscid locust-tree is sometimes almost 
completely stripped of its leaves by these insects, or presents only 
here and there the brown and withered remains of foliage, which 
has served as a temporary shelter to the caterpillars. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 225 



11. HAWK-MOTHS. [Sphivges.]* 

Linnaeus was led to give the name of Sphinx to the insects in 
his second group of the Lepidoptera, from a fancied resemblance 
that some of their caterpillars, when at rest, have to the Sphinx 
of the Egyptians. The attitude of these caterpillars is indeed 
very remarkable. Supporting themselves by their four or six 
hind-legs, they elevate the forepart of the body, and remain im- 
movably fixed in this posture for hours together. In the winged 
state, the true Sphinges are known by the name of humming-bird 
moths, from the sound which they make in flying, and hawk- 
moths, from their habit of hovering in the air while taking their 
food. These humming-bird or hawk moths may be seen during 
the morning and evening twihght, flying with great swiftness from 
flower to flower. Their wings are long, narrow, and pointed, 
and are moved by powerful muscles, to accommodate which their 
bodies are very thick and robust. Their tongues, when uncoiled, 
are, for the most part, excessively long, and with them they ex- 
tract the honey from the blossoms of the honey-suckle and other 
tubular flowers, while on the wing. Other Sphinges fly during the 
daytime only, and in the brightest sunshine. Then it is that our 
large clear-winged Sesiae make their appearance among the flow- 
ers, and regale themselves with their sweets. The fragrant 
Phlox is their especial favorite. From their size and form and 
fan-like tails, from their brilliant colors, and the manner in which 
they take their food, poised upon rapidly vibrating wings above 
the blossoms, they might readily be mistaken for humming-birds. 
The iEgerians are also diurnal in their habits. Their flight is 
swift, but not prolonged, and they usually alight while feeding. 
In form and color they so much resemble bees and wasps as 
hardly to be distinguished from them. The Smerinthi are heavy 
and sluggish in their motions. They fly only during the night, 
and apparently, in the winged state, take no food ; for their tongues 
are very short, and indeed almost invisible. The Glaucopidians, 
or Sphinges with feathered antennae, fly mostly by day, and alight 
to take their food, like many moths, which some of them resemble 

* See page 210. 
29 



226 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

in form, and in their transformations. The caterpillars of the 
Sphinges have sixteen legs, placed in pairs beneath the first, 
second, third, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and last segments of 
the body ; all of them, except the iEgerians and Glaucopidians, 
have either a kind of horn or a tubercle on the top of the last seg- 
ment, and, when at rest, sit with the forepart of the body elevated. 

Having devoted a large portion of this treatise to a descrip- 
tion of the spinning moths, my observations on the other insects 
of this order must be brief, and confined to a few species, which 
are more particularly obnoxious on account of their devasta- 
tions in the caterpillar state. Those persons, who are curious 
to know more about the Sphinges than can be included in this es- 
say, are referred to my descriptive catalogue of these insects, 
contained in the thirty-sixth volume of Professor Sillimari's 
" Journal of Science." 

Every farmer's boy knows the potato-worm, as it is commonly 
called ; a large green caterpillar, with a kind of thorn upon the 
tail, and oblique whitish stripes on the sides of the body. This 
insect, which devours the leaves of the potato, often to the great 
injury of the plant, grows to the thickness of the fore-finger, and 
the length of three inches or more. It attains its full size from 
the middle of August to the first of September, then crawls down 
the stem of the plant and buries itself in the ground. Here, in a 
few days, it throws off its caterpillar-skin, and becomes a chrysa- 
lis, of a bright brown color, with a long and slender tongue-case, 
bent over from the head, so as to touch the breast only at the end, 
and somewhat resembling the handle of a pitcher. It remains 
in the ground through the winter, below the reach of frost, and in 
the following summer the chrysalis-skin bursts open, a large 
moth crawls out of it, comes to the surface of the ground, and 
mounting upon some neighbouring plant, waits till the approach 
of evening invites it to expand its untried wings and fly in search 
of food. This large insect has generally been confounded with 
the Carolina Sphinx, (Sphinx Carolina of Linnaeus), which it 
closely resembles. It measures across the wings about five 
inches ; is of a gray color, variegated with blackish lines and 
bands ; and on each side of the body there are five round, orange- 
colored spots encircled with black. Hence it is called by English 



LEPIDOPTERA. 227 

Entomologists Sphinx quinquemaculatus, the five-spotted Sphinx. 
Its tongue can be unrolled to the length of five or six inches, but, 
w^hen not in use, is coiled like a watch-spring, and is almost en- 
tirely concealed, between two large and thick feelers, under the 
head. 

Among the numerous insects that infest our noble elms the 
largest is a kind of Sphinx, which, from the four short horns on 
the forepart of the back, I have named Ceratomia* quadricornis, 
or four-horned Ceratomia. On some trees these Sphinges exist 
in great numbers, and their ravages then become very obvious ; 
while a few, though capable of doing considerable injury, may 
escape notice among the thick foliage which constitutes their food, 
or will only be betrayed by the copious and regularly formed pel- 
lets of excrement beneath the trees. They are very abundant 
during the months of July and August on the large elms which 
surround the northern and eastern sides of the common in Boston ; 
and towards the end of August, when they descend from the 
trees for the purpose of going into the ground, they may often be 
seen crawling in the mall in considerable numbers. These cater- 
pillars, at this period of their existence, are about three inches 
and a half in length, are of a pale green color, with seven oblique 
white lines on each side of the body, and a row of little notches, 
like saw-teeth, on the back. The four short horns on their 
shoulders are also notched, and like most other Sphinges, they 
have a long and stiff spine on the hinder extremity of the body. 
They enter the earth to become chrysalids and pass the winter, 
and come forth in the winged state in the month of June following, 
at which time the moths may often be found on the trunks of 
trees, or on fences in the vicinity. In this state their wings ex- 
pand nearly five inches, are of a light brown color, variegated 
with dark brown and white, and the hinder part of the body is 
marked with five longitudinal dark brown lines. A young friend 
of mine, in Boston, captured on the trunks of the trees a large 
number of these moths during a morning's walk in the mall, the 
past summer, although obliged to be on the alert to escape from 

* Ceratomia, derived from the Greek, means having horns on the shoulders, a pe- 
culiarity whicli I liave not observed in any other Sphinx. 



228 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the guardians of the common, whose duty it was to prevent the 
grass from being trodden down. Nearly all of these specimens 
were females, ready to deposit their eggs, with which their large 
bodies were completely filled. On being taken, they made scarcely 
any efforts to escape, and were safely carried away. It would 
not be difficult, by such means, very considerably to reduce the 
'number of these destructive insects ; in addition to which it might 
be expedient, during the proper season, for our city authorities to 
employ persons to gather and kill every morning the caterpillars 
which may be found in those public walks where they abound. 
From the genus Sphinx I have separated another group to which 
I have given the name of Philampelus*, from the circumstance 
that the larvae or caterpillars live upon the grape-vine. When 
young they have a long and slender tail recurved over the back 
like that of a dog ; but this, after one or two changes of the skin, 
disappears, and nothing remains of it but a smooth, eye-like, raised 
spot on the top of the last segment of the body. Some of these 
caterpillars are pale green and others are brown, and the sides of 
their body are ornamented by six cream-colored spots, of a broad 
oval shape, in the species which produces ihe Satellitiaoi Limaeus, 
narrow oval and scalloped, in that which is transformed to the 
species called Achemon by Drury. They have the power of with- 
drawing the head and the first three segments of the body within 
the fourth segment, which gives them a short and blunt appear- 
ance when at rest. As they attain to the length of three inches 
or more, and are thick in proportion, they consume great quanti- 
ties of leaves ; and the long leafless branches of the vine too often 
afford evidence of their voracity. They also devour the leaves 
of the common creeper {Ampelopsis quinquefolia) which, with 
those of our indigenous vines, were their only food till the intro- 
duction and increased cultivation of foreign vines afforded them 
an additional supply. They come to their growth during the 
month of August, enter the earth to transform, and appear in the 
winged or moth state the following summer in June and July. 
The Satellitia Hawk-moth expands from four to five inches, is of 
a light olive color, variegated with patches of darker ohve. The 

* The literal signification of this word is I love the vine. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 229 

Jlchemon expands from three to four inches, is of a reddish ash- 
color, with two triangular patches of deep brown on the thorax, 
and two square ones on each fore-wing ; the hind-wings are pink, 
with a deeper red spot near the middle, and a broad ash-colored 
border behind. 

The grape-vine suffers still more severely from the ravages of 
another kind of Sphinx caterpillars, smaller in size than the pre- 
ceding, and like them solitary in their habits, but more numerous, 
and, not content with eating the leaves alone, in their progress 
from leaf to leaf down the stem, they stop at every cluster of 
fruit, and, either from stupidity or disappointment, nip off the 
stalks of the half-grown grapes, and allow them to fall to the 
gr6und untasted. I have gathered under a single vine above a 
quart of unripe grapes thus detached during one night by these 
caterpillars. They are naked and fleshy like those of the Ache- 
mon and Satellitia, and are generally of a pale green color (some- 
times, however, brown), with a row of orange-colored spots on 
the top of the back, six or seven oblique darker green or brown 
lines on each side, and a short spine or horn on the hinder ex- 
tremity. The head is very small, and, with the forepart of the 
body, is somewhat retractile, but not so completely as in the two 
preceding species. The fourth and fifth segments being very 
large and swollen, while the three anterior segments taper ab- 
ruptly to the head, the forepart of the body presents a resemblance 
to the head and snout of a hog. This suggested the generical 
name of Chcerocampa, or hog-caterpillar, which has been applied 
to some of these insects. The species under consideration is 
found on the vine and the creeper in July and August ; when fully 
grown it descends to the ground, conceals itself under fallen 
leaves, which it draws together by a few threads so as to form a 
kind of cocoon, or covers itself with grains of earth and rubbish 
in the same way, and under this imperfect cover it changes to a 
pupa or chrysalis, and finally appears in the winged state in the 
month of July of the following year. The moth, to which Sir 
James Edward Smith gave the name of Pampinatrix, from its 
living on the shoots of the vine, expands from two and a half to 
three inches, is of an ohve-gray color, except the hind-wings. 



230 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

which are rust-colored, and the fore-wings and shoulder-covers 
are traversed with olive-green bands. 

Among the other Sphinges of Massachusetts may be mentioned 
those belonging to the genus Smerinthus, whose tongue is very 
short and scarcely visible, and whose fore-wings are generally 
scalloped on the outer edge. Their caterpillars are rough or 
granulated, with a stout thorn on the tail, and a triangular head, 
the apex of the triangle corresponding to the crown. The blind- 
eyed Smerinthus (S. exccecata) is fawn-colored, clouded with 
brown, except the hind-wings, which are rose-colored in the mid- 
dle, and ornamented with an eye-like black spot having a pale 
blue centre. The caterpillar lives on the apple-tree, but is not 
common enough to prove seriously injurious. The same obser- 
vation will apply to that of the chocolate brown eyed Sphinx 
(^Smerinthus myops)^ which lives on the wild cherry-tree, and to 
the walnut Sphinx (Smerinthus Juglandis), which lives on the 
black walnut and butternut. The latter species is destitute of eye- 
like spots on the hind-wings. Of those belonging to the genus 
Sphinx proper, that which bears the specific name drupiferarum 
inhabits the hackberry ( Celtis occidentalis) and the plum-tree ; 
Sphinx Kalmice inhabits the broad-leaved laurel {Kalmia lati- 
folia) ; the caterpillar of the Gordius is found on the apple-tree ; 
that of the great ash-colored Sphinx {S. cinerea) on the lilac ; 
Hylceus on the black alder (Prinos glaber &c.), and whortle- 
berry ; and the curiously checkered caterpillar of Sphinx conifer- 
arum on pines. Of the hog-caterpillars, those of Choerocampa 
Chcerilus and versicolor may be found on swamp pinks (Azalea 
viscosa and nudijlora). The caterpillar of the white-lined morn- 
ing Sphinx (Ddlephila lineata) feeds upon purslane and turnip 
leaves ; and that of Deilephila Chamanerii on the willow-herb 
[E^ohium angustifolium) . The clear-winged Sphinges, Sesia 
pelasgus and diffinis^ are distinguished by their transparent wings 
and their fan-shaped tails. They hover over flowers, like hum- 
ming birds, during the daytime, in the months of July and Au- 
gust. Their caterpillars bear a general resemblance to those of 
the genus Sphinx, and, as far as they are known, seem to possess 
the same habits. 

The iEgerians (^GERiADiE) constitute a very distinct group 



LEPIDOPTERA. 231 

among the Sphinges. They are easily recognised, in the per- 
fected or winged state, by their resemblance to bees, hornets, or 
wasps, by their narrow wings, which are mostly transparent, and 
by the tufts or brush at the end of the body, which they have the 
power of spreading out like a fan at pleasure. They fly only in 
the daytime, and frequently alight to bask in the sunshine. 
Their habits, in the caterpillar state, are entirely difl'erent from 
those of the other Sphinges ; the latter living exposed upon plants 
whose leaves they devour, while the caterpillars of the ^Egerians 
are concealed within the stems or roots of plants, and derive their 
nourishment from the wood and pith. Hence they are commonly 
called borers, a name, however, which is equally applicable to the 
larvae or young of many insects of other orders. The caterpillars 
of the iEgerians are whitish, soft, and slightly downy. Like 
those of other Sphinges they have sixteen feet, but they are des- 
titute of a thorn or prominence on the last segment of the body. 
When they have come to their full size, they enclose themselves 
in oblong oval cocoons, made of fragments of wood or bark 
cemented by a gummy matter, and within these are transformed 
to chrysalids. The latter are of a shining bay color, and the 
edges of the abdominal segments are armed with transverse rows 
of short teeth. By means of these little teeth, the chrysalis, just 
before it is about to be transformed to a winged insect, works its 
way out of the cocoon, and partly through the hole, in the stem or 
root, which the caterpillar had previously made ; and the shell of 
the chrysalis is left half emerging from the orifice, after the moth 
has escaped from it. 

The ash-tree suffers very much from the attacks of borers of 
this kind, which perforate the bark and sap-wood of the trunk 
from the roots upwards, and are also found in all the branches of 
any considerable size. The trees thus infested soon show symp- 
toms of disease, in the death of the branches near the summit ; 
and, when the insects become numerous, the trees no longer in- 
crease in size and height, and premature decay and death ensue. 
These borers assume the chrysalis form in the month of June, 
and the chrysalids may be seen projecting half way from the round 
holes in the bark of the tree in this and the following month, dur- 
ing which time their final transformation is efi'ected, and they burst 



232 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

open and escape from the shells of the chrysalis in the winged or 
moth state. Under this form this insect was described, in my pa- 
per in Professor Silliman's " Journal of Science", by the name 
of Trochilium* denudation ; as the habits of the larva are now as- 
certained, we may call it the ash-tree Trochilium. Its general 
color is brown ; the edges of the collar and of the abdominal 
rings, the shins, the feet, and the under-side of the antennae are 
yellowish. The hind-wings are transparent ; the fore-wings are 
opake and brown, variegated with rust-red ; they have a trans- 
parent space near the tips, and expand about an inch and a half. 

During the month of August, the squash and other cucurbita- 
ceous vines are frequently found to die suddenly down to the root. 
The cause of this premature death is a little borer, which begins 
its operations near the ground, perforates the stem, and devours 
the interior. It afterwards enters the soil, forms acocoon of a 
gummy substance covered with particles of earth, changes to a 
chrysalis, and comes forth the next summer a winged insect. 
This is conspicuous for its orange-colored body, spotted with 
black, and its hind-legs fringed with long orange-colored and 
black hairs. The hind-wings only are transparent, and the fore- 
wings expand from one inch to one inch and a half. It deposits 
its eggs on the vines close to the roots, and may be seen flying 
about the plants from the tenth of July till the middle of August. 
This insect, which may be called the squash-vine jEgeria, was 
first described by me in the year 1828, under the name of ^ge- 
ria Cucurbitce., the trivial name indicating the tribe of plants on 
which the caterpillar feeds f. 

The pernicious borer, which, during many years past, has 
proved very destructive to peach-trees throughout the United 
States, is a species of v3^^ena, named exitiosa, or the destructive, 
by Mr. Say, who first scientifically described it in the third vol- 
ume of the " Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

' The word Trochilium is derived from Trockilus, the scientific name of the 
humming-bird genus; and these insects are sometimes called humming-bird 
moths; 

t See " New England Farmer", Vol. VIII., p. 33 ; my Discourse before the Mas- 
sachusetts Horticultural Society, in 1832, p. 26; and '' Silliman's Journal", Vol. 
XXXVI., p. 310. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 233 

Philadelphia," and subsequently gave a representation and ac- 
count of it in his " American Entomology." In the fifth volume 
of the "New England Farmer," I have given the history of this 
insect, have mentioned the principal authors who have noticed 
it, and recommended preventive measures, which have been found 
effectual in protecting the peach-tree from its most serious attacks. 
The eggs, from which these borers are hatched, are deposited, in 
the course of the summer, upon the trunk of the tree near the 
root ; the borers penetrate the bark, and devour the inner bark 
and sap-wood. The seat of their operations is known by the 
castings and gum which issue from the holes in the tree. When 
these borers are nearly, one year old, they make their cocoons 
either under the bark of the trunk or of the root, or in the earth 
and gum contiguous to the base of the trees ; soon afterwards 
they are transformed to chrysalids, and finally come forth in the 
winged state, and lay the eggs for another generation of borers. 
The last transformation takes place from June to October, most 
frequently, however, during the month of July, in the State of 
Massachusetts. Here, although there are several broods produc- 
ed by a succession of hatches, there is but one rotation of meta- 
morphoses consummated within a year. Hence borers, of all 
sizes, will be found in the trees throughout the year, although it 
seems to be necessary that all of them, whether more or less ad- 
vanced, should pass through one winter before they appear in the 
winged state. Under its last form, this insect is a slender, dark 
blue, four-winged moth, having a slight resemblance to a wasp or 
ichneumon-fly, to which it is sometimes likened. The two sexes 
differ greatly from each other, so much so, as to have caused 
them to be mistaken for two distinct species. The male, which 
is much smaller than the female, has all the wings transparent, but 
bordered and veined with steel-blue, which is the general color of 
the body in both sexes ; the palpi or feelers, the edges of the col- 
lar, of the shoulder-covers, of the rings of the abdomen, and of the 
brush on the tail, are pale yellow, and there are two rings of the 
same yellow color on the shins. It expands about one inch. 
The fore-wings of the female are blue, and opake, the hind- 
wings transparent, and bordered and veined like those of the male, 
and the middle of the abdomen is encircled by a broad orange-! 
30 



234 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

colored belt. It expands an inch and a half, or more. This in- 
sect does not confine its attacks to the peach-tree. I have re- 
peatedly obtained both sexes from borers inhabiting the excres- 
cences which are found on the trunks and limbs of the cherry- 
tree ; and moreover, I have frequently taken them in connexion 
on the trunks of cherry and of peach trees. They sometimes 
deposit their eggs in the crotches of the branches of the peach- 
tree, where the borers will subsequently be found ; but the injury, 
sustained by their operations in such parts, bears no comparison to 
that resulting from their attacks at the base of the tree, which they 
too often completely girdle, and thus cause its premature decay 
and death. The following plan, vi'hich was recommended by me 
in the year 1826, and has been tried with complete success by 
several persons in this vicinity, will effectually protect the neck, 
or most vital part of the tree, from injury. Remove the earth 
around the base of the tree, crush and destroy the cocoons and 
borers which may be found in it, and under the bark, cover the 
wounded parts with the common clay composition, and surround 
the trunk with a strip of sheathing-paper eight or nine inches 
wide, which should extend two inches below the level of the soil, 
and be secured with strings of matting above. Fresh mortar 
should then be placed around the root, so as to confine the paper 
and prevent access beneath it, and the remaining cavity may be 
filled with new or unexhausted loam. This operation should be 
performed in the spring or during the month of June. In the 
winter the strings may be removed, and in the following spring 
the trees should again be examined for any borers that may have 
escaped search before, and the protecting applications should be 
renewed. 

In Europe there is a species of ^geria, named by Linnaeus 
iipuliformis, which has long been known to inhabit the stems of 
the currant-bush. This, or an insect closely resembling it, is far 
too common in America, in the cultivated currant, with which it 
may have been introduced from Europe. The caterpillars are 
produced from eggs laid singly, near the buds ; when hatched, 
they penetrate the stem to the pith, which they devour, and thus 
form a burrow of several inches in length in the interior of the 
stem. As the borer increases in size, it enlarges the hole com- 



LEPIDOPTERA. 235 

municating with its burrow, to admit of the more ready passage of 
its castings, and to afford it the means of escape when it is trans- 
formed to a moth. The inferior size of the fruit affords an indi- 
cation of the operations of the borers ; and the perforated stems 
frequently break off at the part affected, or, if of sufficient size 
still to support the weight of the foliage and fruit, they soon be- 
come sickly, and finally die. In some gardens, nearly every cur- 
rant bush has been attacked by these borers ; and instances are 
known to me wherein all attempts to raise currant-bushes from 
cuttings have been baffled, during the second or third year of the 
growth of the plants, by the ravages of these insects. They com- 
plete their transformations, and appear in the moth state, about the 
middle of June. The moth is of a blue-black color ; its wings 
are transparent, but veined and fringed with black, and across the 
tips of the anterior pair there is a broad band, which is more or 
less tinged with copper-color ; the under-side of the feelers, the 
collar, the edges of the shoulder-covers, and three very narrow 
rings on the abdomen, are golden yellow. The wings expand 
three quarters of an inch, or a little more. 

Some years ago, it was ascertained that a species of ^geria 
inhabited the pear-tree in this State ; and it is said that consider- 
able injury has resulted from it. An infested tree may be known 
by the Castings thrown out of the small perforations made by the 
borers, which live under the bark of the trunk, and subsist chiefly 
upon the inner bark. They make their cocoons under the bark, 
and change to chrysalids in the latter part of summer. The 
winged insects appear in the autumn, having, like others of this 
kind, left their chrysalis skins projecting from the orifice of the 
holes which they had previously made. In its winged form, this 
^geria is very much like that which inhabits the currant-bush ; 
but it is a smaller species. It was described by me in the year 
1830, under the name of ^gcria Pyri, the pear-tree iEgeria ; 
and ray account of it will be found on the second page of the 
ninth volume of the " New England Farmer." Its wings expand 
rather more than half an inch ; are transparent, but veined, border- 
ed, and fringed with purplish black, and across the tips of the fore- 
wings is a broad dark band glossed with coppery tints ; the pre- 
vailing color of the upper side of the body is purple-black ; but 



236 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

most of the under-side is golden yellow, as are the edges of the 
collar, of the shoulder covers, and of the fan-shaped brush on the 
tail, and there is a broad yellow band across the middle of the ab- 
domen, preceded by two narrow bands of the same color. 

There are several more insects* belonging to this group in 
Massachusetts, one of which lives in the stems of the lilac, and 
another inhabits those of the wild currant, Ribes jioridum. The 
winged male of the latter species is remarkable for the very long, 
slender, and cylindrical tuft or pencil at the extremity of the 
body. Of the rest, there is nothing particularly worthy of note. 

The Glaucopidiansf, so named from the glaucous or bluish 
green color of some of the species, are distinguished from the 
other Sphinges by their antennae, which, in the males at le? -t, and 
sometimes in both sexes, are feathered, or furnished on each side 
with little slender branches, parallel to each other like the teeth 
of a comb. In scientific works such antennae are called pecti- 
nated, from pecien, the Latin for comb. The caterpillars of the 
Glaucopidians have sixteen feet, are slender, and cylindrical, with 
a few hairs scattered generally over the surface of the body, or 
arranged in little tufts arising from minute warts, and are without a 
horn on the hinder extremity. They devour the leaves of plants, 
and make for themselves cocoons of coarse silk, in which they 
undergo their transformations. The chrysalids are oblong oval, 
rounded at one end, tapering at the other, and are not provided 
with transverse rows of teeth on the surface of the body. In the 
caterpillar and winged states, in the nature of their transforma- 
tions, and in their habits, these insects approach very closely to 
the Phalsenae, or moths, forming the third division of Lepidopte- 
rous insects, among which they are arranged by some naturalists. 
There are not many of them in Massachusetts, and only one spe- 
cies requires to be noticed here]:. This is the Procris Ameri- 
cana^ a small moth of a blue-black color, with a saifron-colored 
collar, and a notched tuft on the extremity of the body. The 
wings, which are very narrow, expand nearly one inch. This 
little insect is the American representative of the Procris viiis or 



* See " Silliman's Journal", Vol. XXXVI., p. 309 to 313. 

i See additional observations on page 225, 

t For the other species see " Silliman's Journal", Vol. XXXVI., p. 316 to 319. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 237 

ampelophaga of Europe, which, in the caterpillar state, some- 
times proves very injurious to the grape-vine. The habits of our 
species are exactly the same ; but it has not yet become so com- 
mon as to have attracted general observation. The caterpillars 
are gregarious, that is, considerable numbers of them live and feed 
together, collected side by side on the same leaf, and only dis- 
perse when they are about to make their cocoons. Professor 
Hentz, to whom I am indebted for some notes respecting these 
insects, informs me that the caterpillars occasionally a^ipear in 
considerable numbers on the grape-vines in North Carolina ; and 
states that they are green, with black bands, and slightly hairy. 
Their cocoons are oblong oval, very tough, and are fastened, by 
one side, to the leaves or stems of the plant on which the insects 
live. I have never seen the caterpillars myself, but have occa- 
sionally captured the winged insects, which make their appearance 
here towards the end of July. 

III. MOTHS. {PhalcBTKB.)* 

The third great section of the Lepidoptera, which Linnaeus 
named Phalcena^ includes a vast number of insects, sometimes 
called millers, or night-butterflies, but more frequently moths. 
The latter term, thus applied, comprehends not only those do- 
mestic moths, which in the young or caterpillar state, devour 
cloth, but all the other insects, belonging to the order Lepidop- 
tera, which cannot be arranged among the butterflies and hawk- 
moths. 

These insects vary greatly in size, color, and structure. Some 
of them, particularly those with gilded wings, are very minute ; 
while the Atlas-moth of China {^ttacus *^tlas), when its wings 
are expanded, covers a space measuring nearly nine inches by five 
and a half ; and the owl-moth (Erebus Strix) has wings, which 
though not so broad, expand eleven inches. Some female moths 
are destitute of wings, or have but very small ones, wholly unfitted 
for flight ; and there are species whose wings are longitudinally 
cleft into several narrow rays, resembling feathers. The stalk of 

* See page 210. 



238 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the antennae of moths generally tapers from the base to the end. 
These parts sometimes resemble simple or naked bristles, and 
sometimes they are plumed on each side of the stalk, like feath- 
ers. There is often a good deal of difference in the antennse, ac- 
cording to the sex ; feathered or pectinated antennae being gener- 
ally narrower in the females than in the males ; and there are some 
moths the males of which have feathered antennae, while those of 
the other sex are not feathered at all, or are only furnished with 
very short projections, like teeth, at the sides. Most moths have 
a sucking-tube, commonly called the tongue, consisting of two 
hollow and tapering threads, united side by side, and when not in 
use rolled up in a spiral form ; but in many, this member is very 
short, and its two threads are not united ; and in some it is en- 
tirely wanting, or is reduced to a mere point. Two palpi or 
feelers are found in most moths. They grow from the lower lip, 
generally curve upwards, and cover the face on each side of the 
tongue. Some have, besides these, another pair, which adhere to 
the roots of the tongue. Many moths are said to have no feel- 
ers ; these parts being in them very small, and invisible to the 
naked eye. 

The caterpillars of these insects differ more from each other 
than the moths. In general they are of a cylindrical shape, and 
are provided with sixteen legs ; there are many, however, which 
have only ten, twelve, or fourteen legs ; and in a few the legs are 
so very short, as hardly to be visible, so that these caterpillars 
seem to glide along in the manner of slugs. Some caterpillars 
are naked, and others are clothed with hairs or bristles, and the 
hairs are either uniformly distributed, or grow in tufts. Some- 
times the surface of the body is even and smooth ; sometimes it is 
covered with little warts or tubercles ; or it is beset with prickles 
and spines, which not unfrequently are compound or branched. 

Many caterpillars, previous to their transformation, enclose 
themselves in cocoons, composed entirely of silk, or of silk in- 
terwoven with hairs stripped from their own bodies, or with frag- 
ments of other substances within their reach. Some go into the 
ground, where they are transformed without the additional protec- 
tion of a cocoon; others change to chrysalids in the interior of the 
stems, roots, leaves, or fruits of plants. The chrysalids of moths 



LEPIDOPTERA. 239 

are generally of an elongated oval shape, rounded at one end, and 
tapering almost to a point at the other ; and they are destitute of 
the angular elevations which are found on the chrysalids of butter- 
flies. 

These brief remarks, which are necessarily of a very general 
nature, and comprise but a few of the principal differences observ- 
able in these insects, must suffice for the present occasion. 

Linnaeus divided the Moths into eight groups, namely, Attaci, 
Bombyces, Noctuce, Geometne, Tortrices, Pyralides, TinecB^ and 
AlucitcB ; and these (with the exception of the Attaci, which are 
to be divided between the Bombyces and Noctua), have been 
recognised as well-marked groups, and have been adopted by 
some of the best entomologists* who succeeded him. 

1. Spinners. (Bombyces). 

The Bombyces, so called from Bombyx, the ancient name of 
the silk-worm, are mostly thick-bodied moths, with antennae, in 
the greater number, feathered or pectinated, at least in the males, 
the tongue and feelers very short or entirely wanting, the thorax 
woolly, but not crested, or very rarely, and the fore-legs often 
very hairy. Their caterpillars have sixteen legs, are generally 
spinners, and, with (ew exceptions, make cocoons within which 
they are transformed. 

This tribe has been subdivided into a number of lesser groups 
or families ; but naturalists are not at all agreed upon the manner 
in which these should be arranged. We might place at the head 
of the tribe those large moths, whose Sphinx-like caterpillars are 
naked and warty, and which, in the winged state, are ornamented 
with eye-like spots like the Smerinthi; or, we might place first 
in the series the moths whose caterpillars are wood-eaters, with 
the habits and transformations of the ^gerians; or, we may be- 
gin with the smaller species, with hairy caterpillars, whose habits 
and transformations are like those of the Glaucopidians, and 

* It is hardly necessary to say that among these are Denis and SchiffermUller, 
the authors of the celebrated " Vienna Catalogue", besides Latreille, Leach, 
Stephens, and others, whose classifications of the Moths, how much soever va- 
ried, enlarged, or improved, are essentially based on the arrangement proposed by 
Linnajus. 



240 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

which resemble the latter closely in the winged state ; and thus 
the series, from Procris and other moth-like Sphinges to the true 
Moths, will be uninterrupted. The latter, on the whole, seems 
to be the most natural course, and it agrees with the arrangement 
of Dr. Boisduval, which I shall follow, with some slight changes 
only. 

Agreeably to this arrangement the first family of the Bombyces 
will be the Lithosians (Lithosiad^), so named from two Greek 
words*, meaning a stone, and to live ; for the caterpillars of many 
of these insects hve in stony places, and devour the lichens grow- 
ing on rocks. (Such also are the habits of Giaucojpsis Pholusy 
one of the Glaucopidians.) On this account they are not properly 
subjects for notice in this essay ; but as some of the larger spe- 
cies are grass-eaters, are conspicuous for their beauty, and natu- 
rally conduct to another family, particularly obnoxious to the cul- 
tivators of the soil, it may be interesting to point out their distin- 
guishing traits, and the manner in which the transition to the next 
family is effected. 

The Lithosians are slender-bodied moths, mostly of small size, 
whose rather narrow upper or fore wings, when at rest, generally 
lie flatly on the top of the back, crossing or overlapping each 
other on their inner margins, and entirely covering the under- 
wings, which are folded longitudinally, and, as it were, moulded 
around the body ; more rarely the wings slope a little at the sides, 
and cover the back like a low roof. The antennae are rather 
long, and bristle-formed ; sometimes naked in both sexes, more 
often slightly feathered with a double row of short hairs beneath, 
in the males. The tongue and one pair of feelers are very dis- 
tinct and of moderate length. The back is smooth, neither woolly 
nor crested, but thickly covered with short and close feather-like 
scales. The wings of many of the Lithosians are prettily spotted, 
and they frequently fly in the daytime like the Glaucopidians. 
Their caterpillars are sparingly clothed with hairs, growing in lit- 
tle clusters from minute warts on the surface of the body. They 
enclose themselves in thin oblong cocoons of silk interwoven with 



* Tliis i3 the derivation given by M. Godart. Hist. Nat. Lepidopt. de France. 
Vol. v., p. 10. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 241 

their own hairs. The rings of their chrysahds are generally so 
closely joined as not to admit of motion. Of about a dozen kinds 
inhabiting Massachusetts, I shall describe only two. The first 
of these may be called Gnoyhria vittata *, the striped Gnophria. 
It is of a deep scarlet color ; its fore-wings, which expand one 
inch and one eighth, have two broad stripes, and a short stripe be- 
tween them at the tip, of a lead-color, and the hind-wings have a 
very broad lead-colored border behind; the middle of the abdo- 
men and the joints of the legs are also lead-colored. The cater- 
pillar lives upon lichens, and may be found under loose stones in 
the fields in the Spring. It is dusky, and thinly covered with 
stiff, sharp, and barbed, black bristles, which grow singly from 
small warts. Early in INJay it makes its cocoon, which is very 
thin and silky ; and twenty days afterwards is transformed to a 
moth. 

By far the most elegant species is the De'iopeia bella, the beau- 
tiful Deiopeiaf. This moth has naked bristle-formed antennae; 
its fore-wings are deep yellow, crossed by about six white bands, 
on each of which is a row of black dots ; the hind-wings are 
scarlet red, with an irregular border of black behind ; the body is 
white, and the thorax is dotted with black. It expands from one 
and a half to one inch and three quarters. Its time of appearance 
here is from the middle of July till the beginning of September. 
The caterpillar is unknown to me ; but Drury states that he was 
informed it was of the same color as the fore-wings of the moth, 
(that is yellow and white dotted with black,) and that it feeds 
upon the blue lupines |. The European De'iopeia jmlchella^ 
which is very much Hke our species, feeds, in the caterpillar 

* This moth has all the essential characters of the European Gnophria rubri- 
collis, an insect closely resembling in its colors the Procris Americana. The name 
of the genus is derived from a Greek word signifying dusky, in allusion to the 
dark colors of the insects. 

t This is the name of the fairest of fourteen nymphs, who attended upon Juno, 
mentioned by Virgil in these lines ; 

" Sunt mihi bis septem praestanti corpore Nymphae, 
Quarum, quae forma pulcherrima, Deiopeiam 
Connubio jungam stabili, propriamque dicabo." yEneid, I., 71 lo 73. 

t Drury 's Illustrations, I., p. 52. pi. 24, fig. 3. 

31 



242 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

state, on the leaves of the mouse-ear, Myosotis arvensis and pa- 
lustris ; and it is probable that ours may be found on plants of the 
same kind here. 

Some of the large and richly colored Lithosians resemble, in 
many respects, the insects in the next family, called, by the 
French, cheloniaires, or tortoise-shell, and, by the English, tiger 
and ermine moths. The caterpillars of most of these tiger-moths 
are thickly covered with hairs, whence they have received the 
name of woolly bears, and the family, including them, that of 
Arctiad^, or Arctians, from the Greek word for bear. The 
Arctians, or tiger-moths, have shorter and thicker feelers than the 
Lithosians ; their tongue is also for the most part very short, not 
extending, when unrolled, much beyond the head; their antennae, 
with few exceptions, are doubly feathered on the under-side ; but 
the feathering is rather narrow, and is hardly visible in the females ; 
their wings are not crossed on the top of the back*, but are roofed 
or slope downwards on each side of the body, when at rest ; the 
thorax is thick, and the abdomen is short and plump, and gener- 
ally ornamented with rows of black spots. Their fore-wings are 
often variegated with dark colored spots on a light ground, or light- 
colored veins on a dark ground; and the hind-wings are frequently 
red, orange, or yellow, spotted with black or blue. They fly 
only in the night. Their caterpillars are covered with coarse 
hairs, spreading out on all sides like the bristles of a bottle-brush, 
and growing in clusters or tufts from little warts regularly ar- 
ranged in transverse rows on the surface of the body. They run 
very fast, and when handled roll themselves up almost into the 
shape of a ball. Many of them are very destructive to vegeta- 
tion as, for example, the salt-marsh caterpillar, the yellow bear- 
caterpillar of our gardens, and the fall web-caterpillar. When about 
to transform, they creep into the chinks of walls and fences, or 
hide themselves under stones and fallen leaves, where they en- 
close themselves in rough oval cocoons, made of hairs, plucked 
from their own bodies, interwoven with a few silken threads. 
The chrysalis is smooth, and not hairy, and its joints are movable. 



* To this character tliere is an exception in the Lojjhocampa iessellaris, the 
wino-s of which are closed like those of Lilhnsia quadra. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 243 

Some of the slender-bodied Arctlans, with bristle-formed an- 
tennae, which are not distinctly feathered in either sex, and having 
the feelers slender, and the tongue longer than the others, come 
so near to the Lithosians that natm-alists arrange them sometimes 
among the latter, and sometimes among the Arctians. They be- 
long to Latreille's genus Callimorpha* (meaning beautiful form), 
one species of which inhabits Massachusetts, and is called Calli- 
movpha militarise the soldier-moth, in my Catalogue. Its fore- 
wings expand about two inches, are white, almost entirely bor- 
dered with brown, with an oblique band of the same color from 
the inner margin to the tip ; and the brown border on the front 
margin generally has two short angular projections extending 
backwards on the surface of the wing. The hind-wings are white, 
and without spots. The body is white ; the head, collar, and 
thighs bufF-yellow ; and a longitudinal brown stripe runs along the 
top of the back from the collar to the tail. This is a very vari- 
able moth ; the brown markings on the fore-wings being some- 
times very much reduced in extent, and sometimes, on the con- 
trary, they run together so much that the wings appear to be 
brown, with five large white spots. This latter variety is named 
Callimorpha Lexontei, by Dr. Boisduval. The caterpillar is un- 
known to me. The caterpillars of the Callimorphas are more 
sparingly clothed with hairs than the other Arctians ; and they are 
generally dark colored with longitudinal yellow stripes. They 
feed on various herbaceous and shrubby plants, and conceal 
themselves in the daytime under leaves or stones. 

Most of the other tiger and ermine moths of Massachusetts may 
be arranged under the general name of Arctiaj. The first of 

* The French naturahsts, whom I have followed, include in this genus the 
European moths called Hera, Dominula, Donna, Jucolcea, &c. 

Closely allied to the Hera, and still more so to the militaris, is a large and fine 
species, which inhabits the Southern States, and which I have named Callimorpha 
Carolina. It differs from the militaris in being larger, measuring across tiie 
wings two inches and a quarter, or more, and in having the hind-wings of a deep 
Indian-yellow or ochre color, with one or two black spots near the hind margin ; 
the abdomen also is ochre-yellow. It is possible that this may be the Clymene of 
Esper and Ochsenheimer, or the Colona of Hubner, whose works I have not seen. 

t Chelonia of the French, Eyprepia of the Germans (from a Greek word signi- 
fying preeminent beauty), and subdivided, by the English entomologists, into 
many genera, founded on minute differences in the length of the joints of the feel- 
ers, &c., which it is unnecessary to regard in this treatise. 



244 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

them would probably be placed by Mr. Kirby in Callimorpha*, 
from which, however, they differ in their shorter and more robust 
antennae, always very distinctly feathered, at least in the males. 
They are distinguished from the rest by having two black spots 
on the collar, and three short black stripes on the thorax. The 
largest and the most rare of these moths is the Jlrctia virgo, or 
virgin tiger-moth. On account of the peculiarly strong and disa- 
greeable odor which it gives out, it might, with greater propriety, 
have been named the stinking tiger-moth. It is a very beautiful 
insect. Its fore-wings expand from two inches to two and a half, 
are flesh-red, fading to reddish buff, and covered with many stripes 
and lance-shaped spots of black ; the hind-wings are vermilion- 
red, with seven or eight large black blotches ; the under-side of 
the body is black, the upper side of the abdomen vermilion-red, 
with a row of black spots close together along the top of the back. 
The caterpillar is brown, and pretty thickly covered with tufts of 
brown hairs. The moth appears here in the latter part of July 
and August. 

The >.^i'ge tiger-moth resembles the preceding, but is smaller, 
and not so highly colored, and the black markings on the fore- 
wings are smaller, and separated from each other by wider spaces. 
Its general tint is a light flesh-color, fading to nankin; the fore- 
wings are marked with streaks and small triangular spots of black ; 
the hind-wings are generally deeper colored than the fore-wings, 
and have from five to seven or eight black spots of different sizes 
upon them ; there are two black spots on the collar, and three on 
the thorax, as in the preceding species ; the abdomen is of the 
color of the hind-wings, with a longitudinal row of black dots on 
the top, another on each side, and two rows, of larger size, be- 
neath. The wings expand from one inch and three quarters to 
two inches. I have taken this moth from the twentieth of May 
till the middle of July. The caterpillar appears here sometimes 
in large swarms, in the month of October, having then become 
fully grown, measuring about one inch and a half in lengtlj^^and 



* Mr. Kirby's Callimorpha Parthcnice and Virguncula closely resemble the first 
two or three species which follow. The European pudica, and probably also the 
JVemcophila plantaginis belong to the same group. See Fauna Boreali Americana, 
Vol. IV., p. 304, 305, pi. 4, fig. 6. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 245 

being at this time in search of proper winter quarters wherein to 
make their cocoons. They are of a dark greenish gray color, but 
appear almost black from the black spots with which they are 
thickly covered ; there are three longitudinal stripes of flesh white 
on the back, and a row of kidney-shaped spots of the same color 
on each side of the body. The warts are dark gray, and each 
one produces a thin cluster of spreading blackish hairs. They eat 
the leaves of plantain and of other herbaceous plants, and it is 
stated * that they sometimes make great devastation among young 
Indian corn in the Southern States. 

A much more abundant species in Massachusetts is that which 
has been called the harnessed moth, Arctia phalerata of my Cata- 
logue. It makes its appearance from the end of May to the mid- 
dle of August, and probably breeds throughout the whole sum- 
mer. It is of a pale buft' or nankin color ; the hind-wings next to 
the body and the sides of the body are reddish ; on the fore-wings 
are two longitudinal black stripes and four triangular black spots, 
the latter placed near the tip ; and these stripes and spots are ar- 
ranged so that the buff-colored spaces between them somewhat 
resemble horse-harness ; the hind-wings have several black spots 
near the margin ; there are two dots on the collar, three stripes 
on the thorax, and a stripe along the top of the back, of a black 
color ; the under-side of the body and the legs are also black. 
The wings expand from one inch and a half, to one inch and 
three quarters. The caterpillar is not yet known to me. This 
moth, in many respects, resembles one called Phyllira f by 
Drury, rarely found here, but abundant in the Southern States ; 
the fore-wings of which are black, with one longitudinal line, two 
transverse lines, and near the tip two zigzag lines forming a W, of 
a buff color. 

The feelers and tongue of the foregoing moths, though short, 
are longer than in the following species, which have these parts, 
as well as the head, smaller and more covered with hairs. Some 
of the latter may be said to occupy the centre or chief place 
among the Arctians, exceeding all the rest in the breadth of their 
wings, the thickness of their bodies, and the richness of tlieir 

* Abbot's Insects of Georgia, p. 125, pi. 63. t More properly Fhilyra. 



246 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

colors. Among these is the great American tiger-moth, Arctia 
Americana, an undescribed species, which some of the French 
entomologists* have supposed to be the same as the great tiger, 
Arctia Caja, of Europe. Of this fine insect I have a specimen, 
which was presented to me by Mr. Edward Doubleday, who ob- 
tained it, with several others, near Trenton-falls in New York. It 
has not yet been discovered in Massachusetts, but will probably 
be found in the western part of the State. The fore-wings of the 
Arctia Americana expand two inches and a half or more ; they 
are of a brown color, with several spots and broad winding lines 
of white, dividing the brown surface into a number of large irreg- 
ular blotches ; the hind-wings are ochre-yellow, with five or six 
round blue-black spots, three of them larger than the rest; the 
thorax is brown and woolly ; the collar edged with white before 
and with crimson behind ; the outer edges of the shoulder-covers 
are white ; the abdomen is ochre-yellow, with four black spots on 
the middle of the back ; the thighs and fore-legs are red, and the 
feet dark brown. This moth closely resembles the European 
Caja^ and especially some of its varieties, from all of which, how- 
ever, it is essentially distinguished by the white edging of the 
collar and shoulder-covers, and the absence of black lines on the 
sides of the body. It is highly probable that specimens may oc- 
cur with orange-colored or red hind-wings like the Caja^ but I 
have not seen any such. The caterpillar of our species probably 
resembles that of the Co/a, which is dark chestnut-brown or 
black, clothed with spreading bunches of hairs, of a foxy red 
color on the forepart and sides of the body, and black on the 
back : but the clusters of hairs, though thick, are not so close as 
to conceal the breathing holes, which form a distinct row of pearly 
white spots on each side of the body. These caterpillars eat the 
leaves of various kinds of garden plants, without much discrimina- 
tion, feeding together in considerable numbers on the same plant 
when young, but scattering as they grow older. 

The largest of the American Arctias is the Scribonia, or great 
white leopard-moth, which varies in expansion from two and a 
half to three and a half inches, the females being invariably much 

* Godart. Lepidopt. de France, T. IV., p. 303. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 247 

larger than the males. It is of a white color; the fore-wings and 
thorax are ornamented with many small oval black rings, the 
hind-wings are more or less spotted with black ; and the abdomen 
is yellow, with rows of large blue-black spots on the back and 
sides. The caterpillar, as represented by Mr. Abbot*, is the 
counterpart of that of the Hehe of Europe, being chestnut-brown, 
with transverse red bands between the rings ; and is clothed with 
clusters of dark brown hairs. It is said to eat the leaves of the 
wild sun-flower, and of various other plants. It has been confi- 
dently reported to me that the great leopard moth has been seen 
in Brookline ; but it must be very rare here, for I have never 
heard of its being taken in any part of New England. Specimens 
of this fine insect would be a very acceptable addition to any col- 
lection of such objects. 

Of all the hairy caterpillars frequenting our gardens, there are 
none so common and troublesome as that which I have called the 
yellow bear. Like most of its genus it is a very general feeder, 
devouring almost all kinds of herbaceous plants, with equal relish, 
from the broad-leaved plantain at the door-side, the peas, beans, 
and even the flowers of the garden, and the corn and coarse 
grasses of the fields, to the leaves of the vine, the currant, and the 
gooseberry, which it does not refuse when pressed by hunger. 
This kind of caterpillar varies very much in its colors ; it is per- 
haps most often of a pale yellow or straw color, with a black line 
along each side of the body, and a transverse line of the same 
color between each of the segments or rings, and it is covered 
with long pale yellow hairs. Others are often seen of a rusty or 
brownish yellow color, with the same black lines on the sides and 
between the rings, and they are clothed with foxy red or light 
brown hairs. The head and ends of the feet are ochre-yellow, 
and the under-side of the body is blackish in all the varieties. 
They are to be found of different ages and sizes from the first of 
.Tune till October. When fully grown they are about two inches 
long, and then creep into some convenient place of shelter, make 
their cocoons, in which they remain in the chrysalis state during 
the winter, and are changed to moths in the months of May or 

* Insects of Georgia, p. 137, pi. G9. 



248 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

June following. Some of the first broods of these caterpillars ap- 
pear to come to their growth early in summer, and are trans- 
formed to moths by the end of July or the beginning of August, at 
which time I have repeatedly taken them in the winged state ; but 
the greater part pass through their last change in June. The 
moth is familiarly known by the name of the white miller, and is 
often seen about houses. Its scientific name is Arctia Virginica, 
and, as it nearly resembles the insects commonly called ermine- 
moths * in England, we may give to it the name of the Virginia 
ermine-moth. It is white, with a black point on the middle of 
the fore-wrings, and two black dots on the hind-wings, one on the 
middle and the other near the posterior angle, much more distinct 
on the under than on the upper side ; there is a row of black dots 
on the top of the back, another on each side, and between these a 
longitudinal deep yellow stripe ; the hips and thighs of the fore- 
legs are also ochre-yellow. It expands from one inch and a half 
to two inches. Having been much troubled with the voracious 
yellow bears in the little patch, (I cannot call it a garden,) where 
a kw beans, and other vegetables, together with some flowers, 
were cultivated, I required my children to pick off the caterpillars 
from day to day and crush them, and taught them not to spare 
" the pretty white millers," which they frequently found on the 
fences, or on the plants, laying their golden yellow eggs, telling 
them that, with every female which they should kill, the eggs, 
from which hundreds of yellow bears would have hatched, would 
be destroyed. In some parts of France, and in Belgium, the 
people are required by law to echeniller^ or uncaterpillar, their 
gardens and orchards, and are punished by fine if they neglect the 
duty. Although we have not yet become so prudent and public 
spirited as to enact similar regulations, we might find it for our 
advantage to offer a bounty for the destruction of caterpillars ; and 
though we should pay for them by the quart, as we do for berries, 
we should be gainers in the end ; while the children, whose idle 
hours were occupied in the picking of them, would find this a 
profitable employment. 

The salt-marsh caterpillar, an insect by far too well known on 

* It is most like the Arctia Urticce, but is of a much purer white color. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 249 

our sea-board, and now getting to be common in the interior of 
the State, whither it lias probably been inti'oduced, while under 
the chrysalis form, with the salt hay annually carried from the 
coast by our inland farmers, closely resembles the yellow bear in 
some of its varieties. The history of this insect forms the sub- 
ject of a communication made by me to the " Agricultural So- 
ciety of Massachusetts," in the year 1823, and printed in the 
seventh volume of the "■ Massachusetts Agricultural Repository 
and Journal," with figures representing the insect in its diflerent 
stages. At various times and intervals since the beginning of the 
present century, and probably before it also, the salt marshes 
about Boston have been overrun and laid waste by swarms of 
caterpillars. These appear towards the end of June, and grow 
rapidly from that time till the first of August. During this month 
they come to their full size, and begin to run, as the phrase is, or 
retreat from the marshes, and disperse through the adjacent up- 
lands, often committing very extensive ravages in their progress. 
Corn-fields, gardens, and even the rank weeds by the way-side 
afford them temporary nourishment while wandering in search of 
a place of security from the tide and weather. They conceal 
themselves in walls, under stones, in hay-stacks and mows, in 
wood -piles, and in any other places in their way, which will afibrd 
them the proper degree of shelter during the winter. Here they 
make their coarse hairy cocoons, and change to chrysalids, in 
which form they remain till the following summer, and are trans- 
formed to moths in the month of June. In those cases where, 
from any cause, the caterpillars, when arrived at maturity, have 
been unable to leave the marshes, they conceal themselves be- 
neath the stubble, and there make their cocoons. Such, for the 
most part, is the course and duration of the lives of these insects 
in Massachusetts ; but in the Middle and Southern States two 
broods are brought to perfection annually; and even here some of 
them run through their course sooner, and produce a second 
brood of caterpillars in the same season ; for I have obtained the 
moths between the fifteenth and twentieth of May, and again be- 
tween the first and the tenth of August. Those which were dis- 
closed in May passed the winter in the chrysalis form, while the 
moths which appeared in August must have been produced from 
32 



250 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

caterpillars that had come to their growth, and gone through all 
their transformations during the same summer. This, however, 
in Massachusetts, is not a common occurrence ; for by far the 
greater part of these insects appear at one time, and require a 
year to complete their several changes. The full-grown cater- 
pillar measures one inch and three quarters or more in length. It 
is clothed with long hairs, which are sometimes black and some- 
times brown on the back and forepart of the body, and of a 
lighter brown color on the sides. The hairs, like those of the 
other Arctias, grow in spreading clusters from warts, which are of 
a yellowish color in this species. The body, when stripped of 
the hairs, is yellow, shaded at the sides with black, and there is a 
blackish line extending along the top of the back. The breathing- 
holes are white, and very distinct even through the hairs. These 
caterpillars, when feeding on the marshes, are sometimes over- 
taken by the tide, and when escape becomes impossible, they roll 
themselves up in a circular form, as is common with others of the 
tribe, and abandon themselves to their fate. The hairs on their 
bodies seem to have a repelling power, and prevent the water 
from wetting their skins, so that they float on the surface, and are 
often carried by the waves to distant places, where they are 
thrown on shore, and left in winrows with the wash of the sea. 
After a little time most of them recover from their half-drowned 
condition, and begin their depredations anew. In this way these 
insects seem to have spread from the places where they first ap- 
peared to others at a considerable distance. From the marshes 
about Cambridge they were once, it is said, driven in great num- 
bers, by a high tide and strong wind, upon Boston neck, near to 
Roxbury line. Thence they seem to have migrated to the 
eastern side of the neck, and, following the marshes to South 
Boston and Dorchester, they have spread in the course of time to 
those which border upon Neponset river and Quincy. How far 
they have extended north of Boston I have not been able to 
ascertain ; but I believe that they are occasionally found on all 
the marshes of Chelsea, Saugus, and Lynn. Although these in- 
sects do not seem ever entirely to have disappeared from places 
where they have once established themselves, they do not prevail 
every year in the same overwhelming swarms ; but their numbers 



LEPIDOPTERA. 251 

are increased or lessened at irregular periods, from causes which 
are not well understood. These caterpillars are produced from 
eggs, which are laid by the moths on the grass of the marshes 
about the middle of June, and are hatched in seven or eight days 
afterwards, and the number of eggs deposited by a single female 
is, on an average, about eight hundred. The moths themselves 
vary in color. In the males, the thorax and upper side of the 
fore-wings are generally white, the latter spotted with black ; the 
hind-wings and abdomen, except the tail, deep ochre-yellow, the 
former with a few black spots near the hind margin, and the ab- 
domen with a row of six black spots on the top of the back, two 
rows on the sides, and one on the belly ; the under-side of all the 
wings and the thighs are deep yellow. It expands from one inch 
and seven eighths to two inches and a quarter. The female dif- 
fers from the male either in having the hind-wings white, instead 
of ochre-yellow, or in having all the wings ashen gray with the 
usual black spots. It expands two inches and three eighths or 
more. Sometimes, though rarely, male moths occur with the 
fore-wings ash-colored or dusky. Professor Peck called this 
moth pseiider?iiinea.) that is, false ermine, and this name was 
adopted by me in my communication to the " Agricultural So- 
ciety." Professor Peck's name, however, cannot be retained, 
inasmuch as the insect had been previously named and described. 
Drury, the first describer of the moth, called the male CaproiinOj 
and the female ^crea*, supposing them to be difl^erent species ; 
but the latter name alone has been retained for this species by 
most naturalists. 

In order to lessen the ravages of the salt-marsh caterpillars, and 
to secure a fair crop of hay when these insects abound, the 
marshes should be mowed early in July, at which time the cater- 
pillars are small and feeble, and being unable to wander far, will 
die before the crop is gathered in. In defence of early mowing, 
it may be said that it is the only way by which the grass may be 
saved in those meadows where the caterpillars have multiplied to 
any extent ; and, if the practice is followed generally, and con- 
tinued during several years in succession, it will do much towards 

* The proper orthography is Acrcca. 



252 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

exterminating these destructive insects. By the practice of late 
mowing, where the caterpillars abound, a great loss in the crop 
will be sustained, immense numbers of caterpillars and grasshop- 
pers will be left to grow to maturity and disperse upon the up- 
lands, by which means the evil will go on increasing from year to 
year ; or they will be brought in with the hay to perish in our 
barns and stacks, where their dead bodies will prove offensive to 
the cattle, and occasion a waste of fodder. To get rid of " the 
old fog" or stubble, which becomes much thicker and longer in 
consequence of early mowing, the marshes should be burnt over 
in March. The roots of the grass will not be injured by burning 
the stubble, on 'the contrary they will be fertilized by the ashes ; 
while great numbers of young grasshoppers, cocoons of cater- 
pillars, and various kinds of destructive insects, with their eggs, 
concealed in the stubble, will be destroyed by the fire. In the 
Province of New Brunswick, the benefit arising from burning the 
stubble has long been proved ; and this practice is getting into 
favor here. 

During the autumn, there may be seen in our gardens and fields, 
and even by the way-side, a kind of caterpillar whose peculiar ap- 
pearance must frequently have excited attention. It is very 
thickly clothed with hairs, which are stiff, short, and perfectly 
even at the ends, like the bristles of a brush, as if they had all 
been shorn off with shears to the same length. The hairs on the 
first four and last two rings are black ; and those on the six inter- 
mediate rings of the body are tan-red. The head and body of the 
caterpillar are also black. When one of these insects is taken up, 
it immediately rolls itself into a ball, like a hedge-hog, and, owing 
to its form, and to the elasticity of the diverging hairs with which 
it is covered, it readily slides from the fingers and hand of its 
captor. It eats the leaves of clover, dandelion, narrow-leaved 
plantain, and of various other herbaceous plants, and, on the ap- 
proach of winter, creeps under stones, rails, or boards on the 
ground, where it remains in a half torpid state till spring. In 
April or May it makes an oval blackish cocoon, composed chiefly 
of the hairs of its body, and comes forth in the moth state in June 
or July. My specimens remained in the chrysalis form five 



LEPIDOPTERA. 253 

weeks ; but Mr. Abbot* states that a caterpillar of this kind, 
which made its cocoon in Georgia on the twenty-fourth of June, 
was transformed to a moth on the fifth of July, having remained 
only eleven days in the chrysalis state. The moth is the Arctia 
Isabella^ or Isabella tiger-moth, and it differs essentially from 
those which have been described, in the antennae, which are not 
feathered, but are merely covered on the under-side with a few 
fine and short hairs, and even these are found only in the males. 
Its color is a dull grayish tawny yellow ; there are a few black 
dots on the wings, and the hinder pair are frequently tinged with 
orange-red ; on the top of the back is a row of about six black 
dots, and on each side of the body a similar row of dots. The 
wings expand from two inches to two inches and three eighths. 
The specific name, which was first given to this moth by Sir 
James Edward Smith, is expressive of its peculiar shade of 
yellow. 

We have a much smaller tiger-moth, with naked antennae like 
those of the Isabella. Its wings are so thinly covered with 
scales as to be almost transparent. It has not yet been described, 
and it may be called the ruddle tiger-moth, Arctia rubricosa. Its 
fore-wings are reddish brown, with a small black spot near the 
middle of each ; its hind-wings are dusky, becoming blacker be- 
hind (more rarely red, with a broad blackish border behind), with 
two black dots near the middle, the inner margin next to the body, 
and the fringe, of a red color ; the thorax is reddish brown ; and 
the abdomen is cinnabar-red, with a row of black dots on the top, 
and another row on each side. It expands about one inch and 
one quarter. This moth is rare ; and it appears here in July and 
August. It closely resembles the ruby tiger-moth, Arctia fuligi- 
nosa, of Europe, the wings of which are not so transparent, and 
have two black dots on each of them, with a distinct row of larger 
black spots around the outer margin of the hind pair. The 
caterpillar of our moth is unknown to me ; it will probably be 
found to resemble that of the ruby-tiger, which is blackish, and 
thickly covered with reddish brown or reddish gray hairs. It eats 
the leaves of plantain, dock, and of various other herbaceous 

* Insects of Georgia, page 131, plate 66. 



254 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

plants, grows to the length of one inch and three eighths, passes 
the winter concealed beneath stones, or in the crevices of walls, 
and makes its cocoon in the spring. 

The caterpillars of all the foregoing Arctians live almost en- 
tirely upon herbaceous plants ; those which follow (with one 
exception only), devour the leaves of trees. Of the latter, the 
most common and destructive are the little caterpillars known by 
the name of fall web-worms, whose large webs, sometimes ex- 
tending over entire branches with their leaves, may be seen on 
our native elms, and also on apple and other fruit trees, in the lat- 
ter part of summer. The eggs, from which these caterpillars 
proceed, are laid by the parent moth in a cluster upon a leaf near 
the extremity of a branch ; they are hatched from the last of June 
till the middle of August, some broods being early and others 
late, and the young caterpillars immediately begin to provide a 
shelter for themselves, by covering the upper side of the leaf with 
a web, which is the result of the united labors of the whole brood. 
They feed in company beneath this web, devouring only the up- 
per skin and pulpy portion of the leaf, leaving the veins and lower 
skin of the leaf untouched. As they increase in size, they enlarge 
their web, carrying it over the next lower leaves, all the upper 
and pulpy parts of which are eaten in the same way, and thus they 
continue to work downwards, till finally the web covers a large 
portion of the branch, with its dry, brown, and filmy foliage, re- 
duced to this unseemly condition by these little spoilers. These 
caterpillars, when fully grown, measure rather more than one inch 
in length ; their bodies are more slender than those of the other 
Arctians, and are very thinly clothed with hairs of a grayish color, 
intermingled with a few which are black. The general color of 
the body is greenish yellow dotted with black ; there is a broad 
blackish stripe along the top of the back, and a bright yellow 
stripe on each side. The warts, from which the thin bundles of 
spreading, silky hairs proceed, are black on the back, and rust- 
yellow or orange on the sides. The head and feet are black. I 
have not observed the exact length of time required by these 
insects to come to maturity ; but towards the end of August and 
during the month of September they leave the trees, disperse, 
and wander about, eating such plants as happen to lie in their 



LEPIDOPTERA. 255 

course, till they have found suitable places of shelter and conceal- 
ment, where they make their thin and almost transparent cocoons, 
composed of a slight web of silk intermingled with a few hairs. 
They remain in the cocoons in the chrysalis state through the 
winter, and are transformed to moths in the months of June and 
July. These moths are white, and without spots ; the fore- 
thighs are tawny-yellow, and the feet blackish. Their wings ex- 
pand from one inch and a quarter to one inch and three eighths. 
Their antennae and feelers do not differ essentially from those of 
the majority of the Arctians, the former in the males being 
doubly feathered beneath, and those of the females having two rows 
of minute teeth on the under-side. This species was first 
described by me in the seventh volume of the " New England 
Farmer," page 33, where I gave to it the name of Jlrctia textor, 
the weaver, from the well-known habits of its caterpillar. Should 
it be found expedient to remove it from the genus Arctia, 1 pro- 
pose to call the genus, which shall include it, Hi/phantria, a 
Greek name for weaver, and place in the same genus the many- 
spotted ermine-moth, Jlrctia punctatissima of Sir J. E. Smith, 
which is found in the Southern States, and agrees with our weaver 
in habits. From the foregoing account of the habits and trans- 
formations of the fall web-worm, or Hyphantria teitor, it is evi- 
dent that the only time in which we can attempt to exterminate 
these destructive insects with any prospect of success, is when 
they are young and just beginning to make their webs on the 
trees. So soon, then, as the webs begin to appear on the ex- 
tremities of the branches, they should be stripped off, with the few 
leaves which they cover, and the caterpillars contained therein, 
at one grasp, and should be crushed under foot. 

There are many kinds of hairy caterpillars in Massachusetts, 
differing remarkably from those of the other Arctians, and re- 
sembling in some respects those belonging to the next tribe, with 
which they appear to connect the true Arctians. The first of 
these are little party-colored tufted caterpillars, which may be 
found in great plenty on the common milk-weed, Jlschpias Syrioca, 
during the latter part of July and the whole of August. Although 
the plants on which these insects live are generally looked upon 
as weeds, and cumberers of the soil, yet the insects themselves 



256 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are deserving of notice, on account of their singularity, and the 
place that they fill in the order to which they belong. They keep 
together in companies, side by side, beneath the leaves, their 
heads all turned towards the edge of the leaf while they are eating, 
and when at rest they arch up the forepart of the body and bend 
down the head, which is then completely concealed by long over- 
hanging tufts of hairs, and if disturbed they jerk their heads and 
bodies in a very odd way. These harlequin caterpillars have 
sixteen legs, which, with the head, are black. Their bodies are 
black also, with a whitish line on each side, and are thickly cov- 
ered with short tufts of hairs proceeding from little warts. Along 
the top of the back is a row of short black tufts, and on each side, 
from the fifth to the tenth ring inclusive, are alternate tufts of 
orange and of yellow hairs, curving upwards so as nearly to con- 
ceal the black tufts between them ; below these along the sides of 
the body is a row of horizontal black tufts ; on the first and sec- 
ond rings are four long pencil-like black tufts extending over the 
head, on each side of the third ring is a similar black pencil, and 
two, which are white, placed in the same manner on the sides of 
the fourth and of the tenth rings. About the last of August, and 
during the month of September, these caterpillars leave the milk- 
weed, disperse, conceal themselves, and make their cocoons, 
which mostly consist of hairs. The chrysalis is short, almost 
egg-shaped, being quite blunt and rounded at the hind end, and is 
covered with little punctures like those on the head of a thimble, 
only much smaller. The chrysalids are transformed to moths be- 
tween the middle of .Tune and the beginning of July. These 
moths, though not so slender as the Callimorphas, are not so 
thick and robust as the Arctias, their antennae resemble those of 
the latter, but are rather longer, the feelers are also longer, and 
spread apart from each other, and the tongue is but little longer 
than the head, when unrolled. The wings are rather long, thin, 
and delicate, of a bluish gray color, paler on the front edge, and 
without spots ; the head, thorax, under-side of the body, and the 
legs are also gray ; the neck is cream-colored ; the top of the ab- 
domen bright Indian-yellow, with a row of black spots, and two 
rows on each side. It expands from one inch and three quarters 
to nearly two inches. This moth was figured and described 



LEPIDOPTERA. 257 

many years ago by Drury, who named it Egle. Though marked 
and colored hke some of the Arctias (for example, the luctifera of 
Europe), it cannot with propriety be included in the same genus, 
and therefore I have proposed to call it Euchcetes Egle ; the first 
name, signifying fine-haired, or having a flowing mane, is given to 
it on account of the long tufts of hairs overhanging the forepart of 
the caterpillar like a mane. This moth, in some of its characters, 
approaches to the Lithosians, but seems, in others, too near to 
the Arctians to be removed from the latter tribe, and it is evi- 
dently, in the caterpillar state, nearly allied to the following 
insects, which are undoubtedly Arctians, but lead apparently to 
the Liparians. If our Arctians are grouped in a circle, with the 
larger kinds, such as the great American tiger and leopard moths 
in the middle, and the others arranged around them, then will 
these species, which are here described last, be brought round to 
the Callimorphas with which the series began, and thus a natural 
order of succession will be preserved. 

During the months of August and September, there may be 
seen on the hickory, and frequently also on the elm and ash, 
troops of caterpillars, covered with short spreading tufts of white 
hairs, with a row of eight black tufts on the back, and two, long, 
slender, black pencils on the fourth and on the tenth ring. The 
tufts along the top of the back converge on each side, so as to 
form a kind of ridge or crest ; and the warts, from which these 
tufts proceed, are oblong oval and transverse, while the other 
warts on the body are round. The hairs on the forepart of the 
body are much longer than the rest, and hang over the head ; the 
others are short, as if sheared off, and spreading. The head, 
feet, and belly, are black ; the upper side of the body is white, 
sprinkled with black dots, and with black transverse lines between 
the rings. These neat and pretty caterpillars, when young, feed 
in company on the leaves ; while not engaged in eating, they bend 
down the head and bring over it the long hairs on the forepart of 
the body ; and, if disturbed or handled, they readily roll up like 
the other Arctians. When fully grown, they are nearly one inch 
and a half long. They leave the trees in the latter part of Sep- 
tember, secrete themselves under stones, and in the chinks of 
walls, and make their cocoons, which are oval, thin, and hairy, like 
33 



258 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

those of the other Arctians. The chrysahs is short, thick, and 
rather blunt, but not rounded at the hinder end, and not downy. 
The moths, which come out of the cocoons during the month of 
June, are of a very Hght ochre-yellow color ; the fore-wings are 
long, rather narrow, and almost pointed, are thickly and finely 
sprinkled with little brown dots, and have two oblique brownish 
streaks passing backwards from the front edge, with three rows of 
white semitransparent spots parallel to the outer hind margin ; the 
hind-wings are very thin, semitransparent, and without spots ; and 
the shoulder-covers are edged within with light brown. They 
expand from one inch and seven eighths to two inches and a quar- 
ter or more. The wings are roofed when at rest ; the antennae 
are long, with a double, narrow, feathery edging, in the males, and 
a double row of short, slender teeth on the under-side, in the 
females ; the feelers are longer than in the other Arctians, and 
not at all hairy; and the tongue is short, but spirally curled. 
This kind of moth does not appear to have been described before, 
and it cannot be placed in any of the modern genera belonging to 
the Arctians ; for this reason I propose to call it Lophocampa 
CarycB ; the first name meaning crested caterpillar, and the sec- 
ond being the scientific name of the hickory, on which it lives. 
In England, the moths, that come from caterpillars having long 
pencils and tufts on their backs, are called tussock-moths ; we 
may name the one under consideration the hickory tussock-moth. 
In August and September I have seen on the black walnut, the 
butternut, the ash, and even on the oak, caterpillars exactly re- 
sembling the foregoing in shape, but differing in color, being cov- 
ered, v/hen young, with brownish yellow tufts, of a darker color 
on the ridge of the back, and having four long white, and two 
black pencils extending over the head from the second ring, and 
two black pencils on the eleventh ring ; when they are fully grown 
they are covered with ash-colored tufts, those on the ridge black- 
ish ; the head is black, the body black or greenish black above, 
and whitish beneath, and the legs are rust yellow. This is evi- 
dently a different species or kind from the hickory tussock, being 
differently colored, and having the two hindmost pencils placed on 
the eleventh and not on the tenth ring. I have not yet succeeded 



LEPIDOPTERA. 259 

in keeping these caterpillars alive until they had finished their 
transformations. 

In my collection are specimens of a moth closely resembling 
the hickory tussock in every thing except size and color. It may 
be named Lophocampa maculata, the spotted tussock-moth. It 
is of a light ochre-yellow color, with large irregular light brown 
spots on the fore-wings, arranged almost in transverse bands. It 
expands nearly one inch and three quarters. The caterpillar, as 
far as I can judge from a shrivelled specimen, was covered with 
whitish tufts forming a crest on the back, in which were situated 
eight black tufts ; there was a black pencil on each side of the 
fourth and of the tenth ring, and a quantity of long white hairs 
overhanging the head and the hinder extremity ; the head was 
black ; but the color of the body cannot be ascertained. 

A fourth kind o( Lophocampa^ or crested caterpillar, remains to 
be described. It is very common, throughout the United States, 
on the button-wood or sycamore, upon which it may be seen in 
great numbers in July and August. The tufts on these cater- 
pillars are light yellow or straw-colored, the crest being very little 
darker ; on the second and third rings are two orange-colored 
pencils, which are stretched over the head when the insect is at 
rest, and before these are several long tufts of white hairs ; on 
each side of the third ring is a white pencil, and there are two 
pencils, of the same color, directed backwards, on the eleventh 
ring. The body is yellowish white, with dusky warts, and the 
head is brownish yellow. These caterpillars leave the trees 
towards the end of August, and conceal themselves in crevices of 
fences, and under stones, and make their cocoons, which resemble 
those of the hickory tussock ; and from the middle of June to the 
end of July the moths come forth. These moths are faintly 
tinged with ochre-yellow; their long, narrow, delicate, and semi- 
transparent wings lie almost flatly on the top of the back ; the up- 
per pair are checkered with dusky spots, arranged so as to form 
five irregular transverse bands ; the hind edge of the collar, and 
the inner edges of the shoulder-covers are greenish blue, and be- 
tween the latter are two short and narrow deep yellow stripes ; 
the upper side of the abdomen and of the legs are deep ochre-yel- 
low. The wings expand about two inches. The name of this 



260 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

beautiful and delicate moth is Lophocampa tessellaris, the check- 
ered tussock-moth. It is figured and described in Smith and 
Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," where, however, the caterpillar 
is not correctly represented. Mr. Abbot's figure of the cater- 
pillar has been copied in the illustrations accompanying Cuvier's 
last edition of the " Regno Animal," and is there referred to 
Latreille's genus Sericaria, This includes, besides various other 
insects having no resemblance to the foregoing, the true tussock 
caterpillars belonging to the next group ; but from these the cater- 
pillars of all the kinds of Lophocampa differ essentially in being 
much more hairy, in not having the warts on the sides of the first 
ring longer than the rest, and in being destitute of the little retrac- 
tile vesicles on the top of the ninth and tenth rings ; moreover their 
chrysalids are not covered with short hairs in clusters or ridges. 
On the other hand they agree with the Arctians in being covered 
with warts and spreading bunches of hairs, in rolling up like a ball 
when handled, and in the form and structure of their cocoons. The 
position of the vi^ings of the checkered tussock-moth, when at rest, 
is almost exactly like that of some of the Lithosians ; but the 
other kinds of Lophocampa do not cross the inner edges of the 
wings; and the bodies of all of them are much thicker and more 
robust than those of the Lithosians. 

The third group or family of Bombyces may be called Lipa- 
rians (Liparid^*). Of the moths bearing this name, the females 
have remarkably thick bodies, and are sometimes destitute of 
wings, while the males are generally slender, and have rather 
broad wings. Their feelers are very hairy, and for the most part 
are rather longer than those of the Arctians. Their tongues are 
very short, and invisible or concealed. Their antennae are short, 
bent like a bow, and doubly feathered on the under-side, the 
feathering of those of the males being very wide, and of the 
females mostly narrow. When at rest, these moths stretch out 
their hairy fore-legs before their bodies, and keep their upper and 
lower wings together over their backs, sloping a very little at the 



* From Liparis, more properly Liparus, the name of a genus of moths, belong- 
ing to this group. This name means fat or gross, and was probably assigned to 
the genus on account of the thickness of the bodies of some of these moths. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 261 

sides, and covering the abdomen like a low or flattened roof. 
The females, even of those kinds that are provided with wings, 
are very sluggish and heavy in their motions, and seldom go far 
from their cocoons ; the males frequently fly by day in search of 
their mates. The caterpillars of most of the Liparians are half 
naked, their thin hairs growing chiefly on the sides of their 
bodies; the warts which furnish them being only six or eight* in 
number on each ring ; and they have two little soft and reddish 
warts (one on the top of the ninth, and the other on the tenth 
ring), which can be drawn in and out at pleasure. Some of them 
have four or five short and thick tufts, cut ofl" square at the ends, 
on the top of the back, two long and slender pencils of hairs ex- 
tending forwards, like antennae, from the first ring, sometimes two 
more pencils on the fifth ring, and a single pencil on the top of the 
eleventh ring. The warts which produce these pencils are more 
prominent or longer than the rest. These caterpillars are called 
tussocks in England, from the tufts on their backs. They live 
upon trees and shrubs, and, when at rest, they bend down the 
head, and bring over it the long plume-like pencils of the first 
ring. Their cocoons are large, thin, and flattened, and consist of 
a soft kind of silk, intermixed with which are a few hairs. The 
chrysalids are covered with down or short hairs, and end at the 
tail with a long projecting point. In Europe there are many 
kinds of Liparians, some of them at times exceedingly injurious 
to vegetation, their caterpillars devouring the leaves of fruit-trees, 
and not unfrequently extending their devastations to the hedges, 
and even to the corn and grass f. There do not appear to be 
many kinds in the United States, and they never swarm to the 
same extent as in Europe. 

During the months of July and August, there may be found on 
apple-trees and rose-bushes, and sometimes on other trees and 

* The Arctians have ten or more warts on each ring. 

t These destructive kinds are the caterpillars of the brown-tailed moth (Por- 
thesia auriflua), of the golden-tailed moth {Pnrthesia chrysorrhaa) , of the gipsey- 
moth (Hypogymna dispar), and of the black arches-moth (Psiiura monacha). The 
first of these abounded to such an extent in England, in the year 1782, that nraj'ers 
were ordered to be read in all the churches, to avert the destruction which was an- 
ticipated from them. 



262 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

shrubs, little slender caterpillars of a bright yellow color, sparingly 
clothed with long and fine yellow hairs on the sides of the body, 
and having four short and thick brush-like yellowish tufts on the 
back, that is on the fourth and three following rings, two long 
black plumes or pencils extending forwards from the first ring, 
and a single plume on the top of the eleventh ring. The head, 
and the two little retractile warts on the ninth and tenth rings are 
coral red ; there is a narrow black or brownish stripe along the 
top of the back, and a wider dusky stripe on each side of the 
body. These pretty caterpillars do not ordinarily herd together, 
but sometimes our apple-trees are much infested by them, as was 
the case in the summer of 1828. When they have done eating, 
they spin their cocoons on the leaves, or on the branches or 
trunks of the trees, or on fences in the vicinity. The chrysalis 
is not only beset with little hairs or down, but has three oval clus- 
ters of branny scales on the back. In about eleven days after the 
change to the chrysalis is effected, the last transformation follows, 
and the insects come forth in the adult state, the females wingless, 
and the males with large ashen-gray wings, crossed by wavy 
darker bands on the upper pair, on which, moreover, is a small 
black spot near the tip, and a minute white crescent near the 
outer hind angle. The body of the male is small and slender, 
with a row of little tufts along the back, and the wings expand 
one inch and three eighths. The females are of a lighter gray 
color than the males, their bodies are very thick, and of an oblong 
oval shape, and, though seemingly wingless, upon close examina- 
tion two little scales, or stinted winglets, can be discovered on 
each shoulder. These females lay their eggs upon the top of 
their cocoons, and cover them with a large quantity of frothy mat- 
ter, which on drying becomes white and brittle. Different broods 
of these insects appear at various times in the course of the sum- 
mer, but the greater number come to maturity and lay their eggs 
in the latter part of August, and the beginning of September ; and 
these eggs are not hatched till the following summer. The name 
of this moth is Orgyia * leucostigma^ the white-marked Orgyia or 

* This name is derived from a word which signifies to stretch out the hands, 
and it is applied to this kind of moth on account of its resting with the fore-legs 



LEPIDOPTERA. 263 

tussock-moth. It is to the eggs of this insect that the late Mr. B. 
H. Ives, of Salem, alludes, in an article on " insects which infest 
trees and plants," published in Hovey's " Gardener's Maga- 
zine" *. Mr. Ives states, that on passing through an apple orch- 
ard in February, he " perceived nearly all the trees speckled 
with occasional dead leaves, adhering so firmly to the branches as 
to require considerable force to dislodge them. Each leaf cov- 
ered a small patch of from one to two hundred eggs, united 
together, as well as to the leaf, by a gummy and silken fibre, pe- 
culiar to the moth." In March he "visited the same orchard, 
and, as an experiment, cleared three trees, from which he took 
twenty-one bunches of eggs. The remainder of the trees he left 
untouched until the tenth of May, when he found the caterpillars 
were hatched from the egg, and had commenced their slow but 
sure ravages. He watched them from time to time, until many 
branches had been spoiled of their leaves, and in the autumn were 
entirely destitute of fruit ; while the three trees, which had been 
stripped of the eggs, were flush with foliage, each limb without 
exception, ripening its fruit." These pertinent remarks point 
out the nature and extent of the evil, and suggest the proper 
remedy to be used against the ravages of these insects. 

In the New England States there is found a tussock or vaporer 
moth, seemingly the same as the Orgyia antiqua, the antique or 
rusty vaporer-moth of Europe, from whence, possibly its eggs 
may have been brought with imported fruit-trees. The male moth 
is of a rust-brown color, the fore-wings are crossed by two deeper 
brown wavy streaks, and have a white crescent near the hind 
angle. They expand about one inch and one eighth. The 
female is gray, and wingless, or with only two minute scales on 
each side in the place of wings, and exactly resembles in shape 
the female of the foregoing species. The caterpillar is yellow on 
the back, on which are four short square brush-like yellow tufts ; 
the sides are dusky and spotted with red ; there are two long 

extended. The Germans call these moths streckfiissige Spinner, the French 
pattes 6tendues, and the English vaporer-molhs, the latter probably because the 
males are seen flying about ostentatiously, or vaporing, by day, when most other 
moths keep concealed, 
* Vol. I , p. 52. 



264 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

black pencils or plumes on the first ring, one on each side of the 
fifth ring, and one on the top of the eleventh ring ; the head is 
black ; and the retractile warts on the top of the ninth and tenth 
rings are red. These caterpillars live on various trees and 
shrubs, and are stated, by Miss Dix, in Professor Sillinian's 
" Journal of Science" *, to have been " very destructive to the 
thorn hedges in Rhode Island," "appearing very early in sum- 
mer, and not disappearing till late in November." The cocoons 
resemble those of the white-marked vaporer [Orgyia leuco- 
stigma)^ and the females, after they have come forth, never leave 
the outside of their cocoons, but lay their eggs upon them and 
die there. 

In the early part of August another kind of tussock-moth is 
sometimes seen on fences or on the sides of buildings. Both 
sexes are winged, the females differing from the males only in 
being of a larger size, and in having antennae which are not dis- 
tinctly feathered. They are of a brownish gray color ; their 
fore-wings are traversed by two zigzag brown lines, and these are 
crossed by a straight brown line running parallel to the inner mar- 
gin, and there is a large pale spot near the middle of the front 
margin ; on the top of the abdomen are two little tufts composed 
of black glittering scales. The wings expand from one inch and 
a half to two inches. These moths belong to the genus Dasy- 
chira^ a word signifying thick hand, and applied to insects of this 
kind on account of the thick covering of hairs on their fore-legs. 
The present species seems to be the hucoyhcea^ or brown and 
white tussock-moth, figured in Mr. Abbot's sumptuous work on 
the insects of Georgia. The caterpillar I have not seen ; but in 
the figure of it, given by Mr. Abbot, it is represented of a green- 
ish yellow color, clothed with yellow hairs on the sides, with four 
yellow brush-like tufts on the back, and two brownish pencils on 
the first, eleventh, and twelfth rings. It is said to live on the 
leaves of various kinds of oaks. The chrysalis is of a brownish 
color, is hairy, and has four oval spots covered with branny 
scales on the back. 

The last of the tussock-moths to be described is of a very pale 

* Vol. XIX., p. C2. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 265 

straw-yellow color ; the thorax and abdomen are very woolly, and 
the fore-wings are marked with a small black spot towards the 
tip, and several short crinkled black and brown lines on the mid- 
dle ; all the legs are very hairy, and the feet are black. Both 
sexes are provided with wings, expanding from one inch and a 
half to one inch and three quarters, or more. The females are 
invariably larger than the males, and their antennae are not per- 
ceptibly feathered beneath, while those of the other sex are 
widely feathered in a double row, from one end to the other. 
The caterpillar, according to Mr. Abbot, is covered with 
brownish hairs, which rise gradually on each side to a ridge along 
the middle of the back, giving to it a shape like the roof of a 
house ; the hairs grow in clusters, and are short and even at the 
ends as if sheared off to a uniform length, except those at the 
hinder extremity, which form a kind of bushy tail. It feeds on 
the Viburnum or hobble-bush, the sassafras, and the plum-tree. 
In the month of September it makes a small tough silken cocoon 
of an oval shape, having a flat circular lid at one end, and fastens 
it to the side of a twig. The motli. does not come forth till the 
month of July in the following summer. It was named opercu- 
laris by Sir James E. Smith, from the operculum or lid of its 
cocoon. It agrees in several of its generical characters with the 
brown and golden tailed moths of Europe (Liparis or Porthesia 
auriflua and chrysorrh(Pa) ; but the caterpillar and cocoon are en- 
tirely different from those of the above named insects. On ac- 
count of the short and squat form, and the little bushy tail of the 
caterpillar, and the thick woolly body and legs of the moth, I call 
it Lngoa * opercularis, the rabbit tussock-moth f. 

The next group may be called Lasiocampians (Lasiocam- 
PAD^), after the principal genus | included in it, the name of 
which signifies hairy caterpillar. The Lasiocampians are woolly, 
and very thick-bodied moths, distinguished by the want of the 
bristles and hooks that hold together the fore and hind wings of 

* Lagoa comes from the Greek, and signifies of, or belonging to, a rabbit or hare. 

t It is possible that this insect may be the Bomhyx Jlmericana of Fabricius. 

I To Lasiocampa belong the European moths called Rubi, Trifolii, Quercus, 
Roboris, Dumeti, &c. I have not seen any insects like these in Massachusetts, 
and believe that such are seldom if ever to be found in the United States. 

34 



266 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

other moths, by the wide and turned-up fore-edge of the hind- 
wings, which projects beyond that of the fore-wings when at rest, 
and by their caterpillars, which (with few exceptions) are not 
warty on the back, and are sparingly clothed with short, soft 
hairs, mostly placed along the sides of the body, and seldom dis- 
tinctly arranged in spreading clusters or tufts. These moths fly 
only by night, and both sexes are winged. Their antennae gener- 
ally bend downwards near the middle, and upwards at the points, 
are longer than those of the Liparians, but not so widely feathered 
in the males, and very narrowly feathered beneath in the females. 
The feelers of some are rather longer than common, and are 
thrust forward like a beak ; but more often they are very short 
and small. The tongue, for the most part, is invisible. Their 
wings cover the back like a steep roof, the under pair, being 
wider than common, are not entirely covered by the upper wings, 
but project beyond them at the sides of the body when closed. 
Their caterpillars live on trees and shrubs, and some kinds herd 
together in considerable numbers or swarms ; they make their co- 
coons mostly or entirely of silk. The winged insect is assisted 
in its attempts to come forth, after its last change, by a reddish 
colored liquid, which softens the end of its cocoon, and which, as 
some say, is discharged from its own mouth, or, as others with 
greater probability assert, escapes from the inside of the chrysalis 
the moment that the included moth bursts the shell. 

To this group belong the caterpillars that swarm in the un- 
pruned nurseries and neglected orchards of the slovenly and im- 
provident husbandman, and hang their many-coated webs upon the 
wild cherry-trees that are suffered to spring up unchecked by the 
way-side and encroach upon the borders of our pastures and 
fields. The eggs, from which they are hatched, are placed 
around the ends of the branches, forming a wide kind of ring or 
bracelet, consisting of three or four hundred eggs, in the form of 
short cylinders standing on their ends close together, and covered 
with a thick coat of brownish water-proof varnish. The cater- 
pillars come forth, with the unfolding of the leaves of the apple 
and cherry tree, during the latter part of April or the beginning of 
May. The first signs of their activity appear in the formation of 
a little angular web or tent, somewhat resembling a spider's web, 



LEPIDOPTERA. 267 

stretched between the forks of the branches a httle below the 
cluster of eggs. Under the shelter of these tents, in making 
which they all work together, the caterpillars remain concealed at 
all times when not engaged in eating. In crawling from twig to twig 
and from leaf to leaf, they spin from their mouths a slender silken 
thread, which is a clue to conduct them back to their tents ; and 
as they go forth and return in files, one after another, their path- 
ways in time become well carpeted with silk, which serves to 
render their footing secure during their frequent and periodical 
journeys in various directions, to and from their common habita- 
tion. As they increase in age and size, they enlarge their tent, 
surrounding it, from time to time, with new layers or webs, till, at 
length, it acquires a diameter of eight or ten inches. They come 
out together at certain stated hours to eat, and all retire at once 
when their regular meals are finished ; during bad weather, how- 
ever, they fast, and do not venture from their shelter. These 
caterpillars are of a kind called lackeys in England, and livrees in 
France, from the party-colored livery in which they appear. 
When fully grown they measure about two inches in length. 
Their heads are black ; extending along the top of the back, from 
one end to the other, is a whitish line, on each side of which, on 
a yellow ground, are numerous short and fine crinkled black lines, 
that, lower down, become mingled together, and form a broad 
longitudinal black stripe, or rather a row of long black spots, one 
on each ring, in the middle of each of which is a small blue spot ; 
below this is a narrow wavy yellow line, and lower still the sides 
are variegated with fine intermingled black and yellow lines, which 
are lost at last in the general dusky color of the under-side of the 
body ; on the top of the eleventh ring is a small blackish and 
hairy wart, and the whole body is very sparingly clothed with 
short and soft hairs, rather thicker and longer upon the sides than 
elsewhere. The foregoing description will serve to show that 
these insects are not the same as either the Neustria * or the 

* JVeustria, was the ancient name of Normandy, from whence this European 
species was first introduced into England. The Neustria caterpillar has a bluish 
head on which, as also on the first ring, are two black dots ; the back is tawny 
red, with a central white, and two black lines from one end to the other ; the 
sides are blue, with a narrow red stripe ; on the top of the eleventh ring is a little 
blackish wart; and the belly is dusky. 



26S INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

camp* lackey caterpillars of Europe, for which they have been 
mistaken. From the first to the middle of June they begin to 
leave the trees upon which they have hitherto lived in company, 
separate from each other, wander about awhile, and finally get 
into some crevice or other place of shelter, and make their co- 
coons. These are of a regular long oval form, composed of a 
thin and very loosely woven web of silk, the meshes of which are 
filled with a thin paste, that on drying is changed to a yellow 
powder, like flour of sulphur in appearance. Some of the cater- 
pillars, either from weakness or some other cause, do not leave 
their nests with the rest of the swarm, but make their cocoons 
there, and when the webs are opened these cocoons may be seen 
intermixed with a mass of blackish grains, like gunpowder, ex- 
creted by the caterpillars during their stay. From fourteen to 
seventeen days after the insect has made its cocoon and changed 
to a chrysahs, it bursts its chrysalis skin, forces its way through 
the wet and softened end of its cocoon, and appears in the winged 
or miller form. Many of them, however, are unable to finish 
their transformations by reason of weakness, especially those re- 
maining in the webs. Most of these will be found to have been 
preyed upon by little maggots living upon the fat within their 
bodies, and finally changing to small four-winged ichneumon 
wasps, which in due time pierce a hole in the cocoons of their 
victims, and escape into the air. 

The moth of our American lackey-caterpillar is of a rusty or 
reddish brown color, more or less mingled with gray on the mid- 
dle and base of the fore-wings, which, besides, are crossed by two 
oblique, straight, dirty white lines. It expands from one inch and 
a quarter, to one inch and a half, or a little more. This mothf 

* The caslrensis, oi camp-caterpillar, has a narrow broken white line on the top 
of the back, separating two broad red stripes, which are dotted with black ; the 
sides are blue, with two or three narrow red stripes; the head and first ring are 
not marked with black dots ; there is no wart on the top of the eleventh ring; and 
the belly is while, marbled with black. 

t A short but very accurate aocount of this insect may be found in the* late Pro- 
fessor Peck's " Natural History of the Canker Worm," printed at Boston, among 
the papers of the " Massachusetts Society for promoting Agriculture," in the year 
1796. Professor Peck seems to have been aware that it was not identical with 
the JVeustria, but he forebore to give it another scientific name. It is figured, in 



LEPIDOPTERA. 269 

closely resembles the castrensis^ and still more the Neustria of 
Europe, from both of which, however, it is easily distinguished 
by the oblique lines on the fore-wings, which are not wavy as in 
the foreign species. Moreover, the caterpillar is very different 
from both of the European lackeys ; and it does no seem probable 
that either of them, if introduced into this country, could have so 
wholly lost their original characters. Our insect belongs to the 
same genus, or kind, now called Clisiocampa^ or tent-caterpillar, 
from its habits ; and I propose to distinguish it furthermore from 
its near allies by the name of Americana, the American tent-cater- 
pillar or lackey. The moths appear in great numbers in July, 
flying about and often entering houses by night. At this time 
they lay their eggs, selecting the wild cherry, in preference to all 
other trees, for this purpose, and, next to these, apple-trees, the 
extensive introduction and great increase of which, in this coun- 
try, afford an abundant and tempting supply of food to the cater- 
pillars in the place of the native cherry-trees that formerly, it 
would seem, sufficed for their nourishment. These insects, be- 
cause they are the most common and most abundant in all parts of 
our country, and have obtained such notoriety that in common 
language they are almost exclusively known among us by the name 
of the caterpillars, are the worst enemies of the orchard. Where 
proper attention has not been paid to the destruction of them, they 
prevail to such an extent as almost entirely to strip the apple and 
cherry trees of their foliage, by their attacks continued during the 
seven weeks of their life in the caterpillar form. The trees, in 
those orchards and gardens where they have been suffered to 
j?reed for a succession of years, become prematurely old, in con- 
sequence of the efforts they are obliged to make to repair, at an 
unseasonable time, the loss of their foliage, and are rendered un- 
fruitful, and consequently unprofitable. But this is not all ; these 
pernicious insects spread in every direction, from the trees of the 
careless and indolent, to those of their more careful and indus- 
trious neighbours, whose labors are thereby greatly increased, 



its different forms, in Mr. Abbot's " Natural History of the Insects of Georgia,' 
where it is named castrensis, by Sir J. E. Smith, the editor of the work. 



270 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and have to be followed up year after year, without any prospect 
of permanent rehef. 

Many methods and receipts for the destruction of these insects 
have been pubhshed and recommended, but have failed to exter- 
minate them, and indeed have done but little to lessen their num- 
bers. Mr. Lowell* has justly said that "the great difficulty is 
the neglect to do any thing, till after the caterpillars have covered 
the trees with their nests. Then the labors of the sluggard com- 
mence, and one tree, let his receipt be ever so perfect and pow- 
erful, will cost him as much time and labor as ten trees would 
have required three weeks sooner." The means to be employed 
may be stated under three heads. The first is, the collection and 
destruction of the eggs. These should be sought for in the win- 
ter and the early part of spring, when there are no leaves on the 
trees. They are easily discovered at this time, and may be re- 
moved with the thumb-nail and fore-finger. Nurseries and the 
lower limbs of large trees may thus be entirely cleared of the 
clusters of eggs during a few visits made at the proper season. 
If a liberal bounty for the collection of the eggs were to be of- 
fered, and continued for the space of ten years, these destructive 
caterpillars would be nearly exterminated at the end of that time. 
Under the second head are to be mentioned the most approved 
plans for destroying the caterpillars after they are hatched, and 
have begun to make their nests or tents. It is well known that 
the caterpillars come out to feed twice during the daytime, 
namely, in the forenoon and afternoon, and that they rarely leave 
their nests before nine in the morning, and return to them again at 
noon. During the early part of the season, while the nests are 
small, and the caterpillars young and tender, and at those hours 
when the insects are gathered together within their common habi- 
tation, they may be effectually destroyed by crushing them by 
hand in the nests. A brush, somewhat like a bottle-brush, fixed 
to a long handle, as recommended by the late Colonel Pickering, 
or, for the want thereof, a dried mullein head and its stalk fastened 
to a pole, will be useful to remove the nests, with the caterpillars 

* See the " Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal," Vol. VII., 
page 30 1 . 



LEPIDOPTERA. 271 

contained therein, from those branches which are too high to be 
reached by hand. Instead of the brush, we may use, with nearly 
equal success, a small mop or sponge, dipped as often as neces- 
sary into a pailful of refuse soap-suds, strong white-wash, or cheap 
oil. The mop should be thrust into the nest and turned round a 
little, so as to wet the caterpillars with the liquid, which will kill 
every one that it touches. These means, to be effectual, should 
be employed during the proper hours, that is, early in the morn- 
ing, at mid-day, or at night, and as soon in the spring as the cater- 
pillars begin to make their nests ; and they should be repeated as 
often, at least, as once a week, till the insects leave the trees. 
Early attention and perseverance in the use of these remedies 
will, in time, save the farmer hundreds of dollars, and abundance 
of mortification and disappointment, besides rewarding him with 
the grateful sight of the verdant foliage, snowy blossoms, and rich 
fruits of his orchard in their proper seasons. Under the third 
head, I beg leave to urge the people of this Commonwealth to 
declare war against these caterpillars, a war of extermination, to 
be waged annually during the month of May and the beginning of 
June. Let every able-bodied citizen, who is the owner of an ap- 
ple or cherry tree, cultivated or wild, within our borders, appear 
on duty, and open the campaign on the first washing-day in May, 
armed and equipped with brush and pail, as above directed, and 
give battle to the common enemy ; and let every housewife be 
careful to reserve for use a plentiful supply of ammunition, strong 
waste soap-suds, after every weekly wash, till the liveried host 
shall have decamped from their quarters, and retreated for the 
season. If every man is prompt to do his duty, I venture to 
predict that the enemy will be completely conquered, in less time 
than it will take to exterminate the Indians in Florida. 

Another caterpillar, whose habits are similar to those of the 
preceding, is now and then met with, in Massachusetts, upon oak 
and walnut trees, and more rarely still upon apple-trees. Ac- 
cording to Mr. Abbot " it is sometimes so plentiful in Virginia 
as to strip the oak-trees bare." It may be called Clisiocnmpa 
silvatica^ the tent-caterpillar of the forest. With us it comes to 
its full size from the tenth to the twentieth of June, and then 
measures about two inches in length. There are a few short 



272 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

yellow hairs scattered over its body, particularly on the sides, 
where they are thickest. The general color of the whole body is 
light blue, clear on the back, and greenish at the sides ; the head 
is blue, and without spots ; there are two yellow spots, and four 
black dots on the top of the first ring ; along the top of the back is a 
row of eleven oval white spots, beginning on the second ring, and 
two small elevated black and hairy dots on each ring, except the 
eleventh, which has only one of larger size ; on each side of the 
back is a reddish stripe bordered by slender black lines ; and 
lower down on each side is another stripe of a yellow color be- 
tween two black lines ; the under-side of the body is blue-black. 
This kind of caterpillar lives in communities of three or four hun- 
dred individuals under a common web or tent, which is sometimes 
made against the trunk of the trees. When fully grown they 
leave the trees, get into places sheltered from rain, and make 
their cocoons, which exactly resemble those of the apple-tree 
tent-caterpillars in form, size, and materials. The moths appear 
in sixteen or twenty days afterwards. They are of a brownish 
yellow or nankin color ; the hind-wings, except at base, are light 
rusty brown ; and on the fore-wings are two oblique rust-brown 
and nearly straight parallel lines. A variety is sometimes found 
with a broad red-brown band across the fore-wings, occupying 
the whole space, which, in other individuals, intervenes between 
the oblique lines. The wings expand from one inch and one 
quarter, to one inch and three quarters. The great difference in 
the caterpillar will not permit us to refer this species to the Neus- 
tria of Europe, for which Sir J. E. Smith* mistook it, or to the 
castrensis, which it more closely resembles in its winged form. 

Most caterpillars are round, that is, cylindrical, or nearly so ; 
but there are some belonging to this group that are very broad, 
slightly convex above, and perfectly flat beneath. They seem 
indeed to be much broader and more flattened than they really 
are, by reason of the hairs on their sides, which spread out so as 
nearly to conceal the feet, and form a kind of fringe along each 
side of the body. These hairs grow mostly from horizontal 
fleshy appendages or long warts, somewhat like legs, and of which 

* See Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," wliere it is figured. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 273 

there is one hanging from the side of every ring ; those on the 
first ring heing much longer than the others, which progressively 
decrease in size to the last. On the forepart of the body one or 
two velvet-like and highly colored bands may be seen when the 
caterpillar is in motion ; and on the top of the eleventh ring there 
is generally a long naked wart. When these singular caterpillars 
are not eating, they remain at rest, stretched out on the limbs of 
trees, and they often so nearly resemble the bark in color as to 
escape observation. From the lappets, or leg-like appendages, 
hanging to their sides, they are called lappet-caterpillars by Eng- 
lish writers. 

Twice I have found, on the apple-tree, in the month of Sep- 
tember, caterpillars of this kind, measuring, when fully grown, 
two inches and a half in length, and above half an inch in breadth. 
The upper side was gray, variegated with irregular white spots, 
and sprinkled all over with fine black dots ; on the forepart of the 
body there were two transverse velvet-like bands of a rich scarlet 
color, one on the hind part of the second, and the other on the 
third ring, and on each of these bands were three black dots ; the 
under-side of the body was orange-colored, with a row of diamond- 
shaped black spots ; the hairs on the sides were gray, and many 
of them were tipped with a white knob. The caterpillar eats the 
leaves of the apple-tree, feeding only in the night, and remaining 
perfectly quiet during the day. The moth produced from it was 
supposed by Sir J. E. Smith* to be the same as the European 
llicifolia, or holly-leaved lappet-moth, from which, however, it 
differs in so many respects that I shall venture to give it another 
name. It belongs to the genus Gastropacha, so called from the 
very thick bodies of the moths ; and the present species may be 
named Americana, the American lappet-moth. Were it not for 
its regular shape, it might, when at rest, very easily be mistaken 
for a dry, brown, and crumpled leaf. The feelers are somewhat 
prominent like a short beak ; the edges of the under-wings are 
very much notched, as are the hinder and inner edges of the fore- 
wings, and these notches are white ; its general color is a red- 
brown ; behind the middle of each of the wings is a pale band, 

* See Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 101, pi. 51. 

35 



274 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

edged with zigzag dark brown lines, and there are also two or 
three short irregular brown lines running backwards from the front 
edge of the fore-wings, besides a minute pale crescent, edged with 
dark brown, near the middle of the same. In the females the pale 
bands and dark lines are sometimes wanting, the wings being 
almost entirely of a red-brown color. It expands from one inch 
and a half to nearly two inches. Mr. Abbot, who has figured it, 
states that the caterpillar lives on the oak and the ash, that it spun 
itself up in May among the leaves in a gray-brown cocoon, in 
which the chrysalis was enveloped with a pale brown powder, and 
that the moth came out in February. My specimens, on the 
contrary, as above stated, were found on apple-trees, made their 
cocoons in the autumn, and appeared in the winged form in the 
early part of the following summer. 

The foregoing is the only American lappet-moth, with notched 
wings, which is known to me ; but we have another much larger 
one, with entire wings. It is the Velleda of Stoll, so named 
after a celebrated German female, commemorated by the ancient 
historian Tacitus. This moth has a very large, thick, and woolly 
body, and is of a white color, variegated or clouded with blue- 
gray. On the fore-wings are two broad dark gray bands, inter- 
vening between three narrow wavy white bands, the latter being 
marked by an irregular gray line ; the veins are white, prominent, 
and very distinct ; the hind-wings are gray, with a white hind 
border, on which are two interrupted gray lines, and across the 
middle there is a broad, faint, whitish band ; on the top of the 
thorax is an oblong blackish spot, widening behind, and consisting 
of long black and pearl colored erect scales, shaped somewhat 
like the handle of a spoon. There is a great disparity in the 
size of the sexes, the males measuring only from one inch and a 
half to one inch and three quarters across the wings, while the 
females expand from two and a quarter, to two inches and three 
quarters or more. The caterpillar of this fine moth I have never 
seen alive ; but one was sent to me, in the autumn of 1828, by the 
late T. G. Fessenden, Esq., who received it from Newburyport, 
from a correspondent, by whom it was found on the fifth of Au- 
gust, sticking so fast to the limb of an apple-tree, that at first it 



LEPIDOPTERA. 275 

was mistaken for a cankered spot on the bark*. It was said to 
have measured two inches and a half in length, but when it came 
into my hands it had spun itself up in its cocoon. A caterpillar 
of the same kind, found also on an apple-tree, has been described 
by Miss Dix in Professor Silliman's "Journal of Science."! 
This observing lady states, that "when at rest the resemblance of 
its upper surface was so exact with the young bark of the branch 
on which it was fixed, that its presence might have escaped the 
most accurate investigation ; and this deception was the more 
complete from the unusual shape of the caterpillar, which might 
be likened to the external third of a cylinder. The sides of the 
body were cloaked and fringed with hairs. It was of a pale sea- 
green color above, marked with ash, blended into white ; and be- 
neath of a brilliant orange, spotted with vivid black. When in 
motion its whole appearance was changed, it extended to the 
length of two inches, and two thirds of an inch in breadth, its 
colors brightened, and a transverse opening was disclosed on the 
back, two thirds of an inch from the head, of a most rich velvet 
black color. It was sluggish and motionless during the day, and 
active only at night." Mr. Abbot found the caterpillar of the 
Velleda lappet-moth on the willow-oak, and on the persimmon ; 
and, in his figure, it is represented of a dark ashen gray color, 
with a velvet-like black band across the upper part of the third 
ring|. The cocoon of the specimen sent to me by Mr. Fessen- 
den, resembled grocers' soft brownish gray paper in color and 
texture, with a very few blackish hairs interwoven with the silk of 
which it was made. It was an inch and a half long, and half an 
inch wide, bordered on all sides by a loose web, which made it 
seem of larger dimensions ; its shape was oval, convex above, 
and perfectly flat and very thin on the under-side. The moth 
came forth from this cocoon on the fifteenth of September, or 
about forty days after the cocoon was spun. 

The Chinese silk-worm and its moth, Bomhyx mori, the 
Bombyx of the mulberry, should follow these insects in a natural 
arrangement ; for the former is slightly hairy when first hatched 



* See " New England Farmer," Vol. VII., p. 33. 

t Vol. XIX., pp. 62 and 63. | " Insects of Georgia," p. 103, pi. 52. 



276 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

from the egg, and, though naked afterwards, it has, like the lappet- 
caterpillars, a long fleshy wart on the top of the eleventh ring. 
The history of the silk-worm, however, does not belong to the 
subject of this treatise. 

There are several kinds of caterpillars, in the United States, 
whose cocoons are wholly made of a very strong and durable silk, 
fully equal to that obtained in India from the tusseh and arrindy 
silk-worms. These insects, together with some others, whose 
cocoons are much thinner, and consist more of gummy matter 
than of silk, belong to a family called Saturnians (Saturniad^), 
from Saturnia, the name of a genus included in this group. The 
caterpillars are naked, are generally short, thick, and clumsy, 
cylindrical, but frequently hunched on the back of each ring, 
especially when at rest, and- are furnished with a few warts, which 
are either bristled with little points or very short hairs, or are 
crowned with sharp and branching prickles. They live on trees 
or shrubby plants, the leaves of which they devour ; some of 
them, when young, keep and feed together in swarms, but separate 
as they become older. When fully grown and ready to make 
their cocoons, some of them draw together a (ew leaves so as to 
form a hollow, within which they spin their cocoons ; others 
fasten their cocoons to the stems or branches of plants often in the 
most artful and ingenious manner ; and a very few transform upon 
or just under the surface of the ground, where they cover them- 
selves with leaves or grains of earth stuck together with a little 
gummy matter. The escape of the moth from its cocoon is ren- 
dered easy by the fluid which is thrown out and softens the 
threads. The chrysalis offers no striking peculiarities, being 
smooth, not hairy, and not provided with transverse notched 
ridges. This group contains some of the largest insects of the 
order ; moths distinguished by great extent and breadth of wings, 
thick and woolly bodies, and antennae which are widely feathered 
on both sides, from one end to the other, in the males at least, 
and often in both sexes. The tongue and feelers are extremely 
short and rarely visible. The wings are generally spread out, 
when at rest, so as to display both pairs, and they are held either 
horizontally, or more or less elevated above the body; a very 
few, however, turn the fore-wings back, so as to cover the hind- 



LEPIDOPTERA. 277 

wings and the body in repose. There are no bristles and hooks 
to keep the fore and hind wings together. In the middle of each 
wing there is generally a conspicuous spot of a different color 
from the rest of the surface, often like the eye-spot on peacocks' 
feathers, sometimes with a transparent space like talc or isinglass 
in the middle, and sometimes kidney-shaped and opake. These 
moths commonly fly towards the close of the day, and in the 
evening twilight. Their eggs are very numerous, amounting to 
several hundreds from a single individual. 

Although the injuries committed by the caterpillars of the Sa- 
turnians are, by no means, very great, the magnitude and beauty 
of the moths render them very conspicuous and worthy of notice. 
The largest kinds belong to that division of the Bombyces called 
Jlttacus by Linnaeus. They are distinguished from the rest of the 
Saturnians by having wide and flat antennae, like short oval 
feathers, in both sexes, and by the fleshy warts on the backs of 
their caterpillars, which are richly colored, and tipped with 
minute bristles. Preeminent above all our moths, in queenly 
beauty, is the Attacus Luna, or Luna moth, its specific name 
being the same as that given by the Romans to the moon, poeti- 
cally styled " fair empress of the night." The wings of this fine 
insect are of a delicate light green color, and the hinder angle of 
the posterior wings is prolonged, so as to form a tail to each, of 
an inch and a half or more in length ; there is a broad purple- 
brown stripe along the front edge of the fore-wings, extending 
also across the thorax, and sending backwards a little branch to an 
eye-Hke spot near the middle of the wing ; these eye-spots, of 
which there is one on each of the wings, are transparent in the 
centre, and are encircled by rings of white, red, yellow, and 
black ; the hinder borders of the wings are more or less edged or 
scalloped with purple-brown ; the body is covered with a white 
kind of wool ; the antennae are ochre-yellow ; and the legs are 
purple-brown. The wings expand from four inches and three 
quarters to five inches and a half. The caterpillar of this moth 
lives on the walnut and hickory, on which it may be found, fully 
grown, towards the end of July and during the month of August. 
It is of a pale and very clear bluish green color ; there is a yellow 
stripe on each side of the body, and the back is crossed, between 



278 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the rings, by transverse lines of the same yellow color ; on each 
of the rings are about six minute pearl-colored warts, tinged with 
purple or rose-red, and furnishing a few little hairs ; and at the 
extremity of the body are three brown spots, edged above with 
yellow. When this insect is at rest it is nearly as thick as a man's 
thumb, its rings are hunched, and its body is shortened, not 
measuring, even when fully grown, above two inches in length ; 
but, in motion, it extends to the length of three inches or more. 
When about to make its cocoon, it draws together, with silken 
threads, two or three leaves of the tree, and within the hollow- 
thus formed spins an oval and very close and strong cocoon, about 
one inch and three quarters long, and immediately afterwards 
changes to a chrysalis. The cocoons fall from the trees in the 
autumn with the leaves in which they are enveloped ; and the 
moths make their escape from them in June. 

A caterpillar, closely resembling that of the Luna moth, may 
be found on oaks, and sometimes also on elm and lime trees, in 
August and September. Its sides are not striped with yellow, 
and there are no transverse yellow bands on the back ; the warts 
have a pearly lustre, more or less tinted with orange, rose-red, or 
purple, and between the two lowermost on the side of each ring 
is an oblique white line ; the head and the feet are brown ; and 
the tail is bordered by a brown V shaped line. These caterpillars, 
in repose, cling to the twigs of the trees, with their backs down- 
wards, contract their bodies in length, and hunch up the rings 
even more than those of the Luna moth, which, when fully 
grown, they somewhat exceed in size. They make their cocoons 
upon the trees in the same manner, with an outer covering of 
leaves, which fall off in the autumn, bearing the enclosed tough 
oval cocoons to the ground, where they remain through the win- 
ter, and the moths come out in the month of June following. 
Notwithstanding the great similarity of the caterpillar and its co- 
coon to those of the Luna, the moth is entirely different. Its 
hind-wings are not tailed, but are cut off almost square at the cor- 
ners. It is of a dull ochre-yellow color, more or less clouded 
with black in the middle of the wings, on each of which there is a 
transparent eye-like spot, divided transversely by a slender line, 
and encircled by yellow and black rings ; before and adjoining to 



LEPIDOPTERA. 279 

the eye-spot of the hind-wings is a large blue spot shading into 
black ; near the hinder margin of the wings is a dusky band, edged 
with reddish white behind ; on the front margin of the fore-wings 
is a gray stripe, which also crosses the forepart of the thorax ; and 
near the base of the same wings are two short red lines, edged 
with white. It expands from five and a quarter to six inches. 
This moth, on account of its great size, is called Polyphemus, the 
name of one of the giants in mythology. 

Attacus Cecropia * is a still larger insect expanding from five 
inches and three quarters to six inches and a half. The hind- 
wings are rounded ; and not tailed. The ground-color of the 
wings is a grizzled dusky brown, with the hinder margins clay- 
colored ; near the middle of each of the wings there is an opake 
kidney-shaped dull red spot, having a white centre and a narrow 
black edging ; and beyond the spot a wavy dull red band, bor- 
dered internally with white ; the fore-wings, next to the shoulders, 
are dull red, with a curved white band ; and near the tips of the 
same is an eye-like black spot, within a bluish white crescent ; 
the upper side of the body and the legs are dull red ; the forepart 
of the thorax and the hinder edges of the rings of the abdomen are 
white ; and the belly is checkered with red and white. This moth 
makes its appearance during the month of June. The caterpillar 
is found on apple, cherry, and plum trees, and on currant and 
barberry bushes in July and August. It comes to its full size by 
the first of September, and then measures three inches, or more, 
in length, and is thicker than a man's thumb. It is entirely of a 
fine, clear, light green color ; on the top of the second ring are 
two large globular coral red warts, beset with about fourteen very 
short black bristles ; the two warts on the top of the third ring are 
like those on the second, but rather larger ; on the top of the 
seven following rings there are two very long egg-shaped yellow 
warts, bristled at the end, and a single wart of larger size on the 
eleventh ring ; on each side of the body there are two longitu- 
dinal rows of long light blue warts, bristled at the end, and an ad- 
ditional short row, below them, along the first five rings. This 
caterpillar does not bear confinement well ; but it may be seen 

* Cecropia was the ancient name of the city of Athens; its application, by Lin- 
naeus, to this moth is inexplicable. 



280 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

spinning its cocoon, early in September, on the twigs of the trees 
or bushes on which it lives. The cocoon is fastened longitudi- 
nally to the side of a twig. It is, on an average, three inches 
long, and one inch in diameter at the widest part. Its shape is an 
oblong oval, pointed at the upper end. It is double, the outer 
coat being wrinkled, and resembling strong brown paper in color 
and thickness ; when this tough outer coat is cut open, the inside 
will be seen to be lined with a quantity of loose yellow-brown 
strong silk, surrounding an inner oval cocoon, composed of the 
same kind of silk, and closely woven like that of the silk-worm. 
The insect remains in the chrysahs form through the winter. 
The moth, which comes forth in the following summer, would not 
be able to pierce the inner cocoon, were it not for the fluid pro- 
vided for the purpose of softening the threads ; but it easily forces 
its way through the outer cocoon at the small end, which is more 
loosely woven than elsewhere, and the threads of which converge 
again, by their own elasticity, so as almost entirely to close the 
opening after the insect has escaped. 

A few brown and curled leaves may frequently be seen hanging 
upon sassafras-trees during the winter, when all the other leaves 
have fallen off. If one of these leaves is examined, it will be 
found to be retained by a quantity of silken thread, which is 
wound or woolded round the twig to the distance of half an inch 
or more on each side of the leaf-stalk, and is thence carried down- 
wards around the stalk to an oval cocoon, that is wrapped up by 
the sides of the leaf. The cocoon itself is about an inch long, of 
a regular oval shape, and is double, like that of the Cecropia 
caterpillar, but the outer coat is not loose and wrinkled, and the 
space between the outer and inner coats is small and does not 
contain much floss silk. So strong is the coating of silk that sur- 
rounds the leaf-stalk, and connects the cocoon with the branch, 
that it cannot be severed without great force : and consequently 
the chrysalis swings securely within its leaf-covered hammock 
through all the storms of winter. Cocoons of the same kind are 
sometimes found suspended to the twigs of the wild cherry-tree, 
the Azalea, or swamp-pink, and the Cephalanthus, or button- 
bush, but not so often as on the sassafras-tree. Two of them, 
hanging close together on one twig, were once brought to me. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 281 

and a male and female moth were produced from these twin co- 
coons in July, the usual time for these insects to leave their win- 
ter quarters. Drury called this kind of moth Promethta^ a mis- 
take probably for Frometheus*, the name of one of the Titans, 
all of whom were fabled to be of gigantic size. The color of Ai- 
iacus Promethea differs according to the sex. The male is of a 
deep smoky brown color on the upper side, and the female light 
reddish brown ; in both, the wings are crossed by a wavy whitish 
line near the middle, and have a wide clay-colored border, which 
is marked by a wavy reddish line ; near the tips of the fore-wings 
there is an eye-like black spot within a bluish white crescent ; 
near the middle of each of the wings of the female there is an an- 
gular reddish white spot, edged widi black ; these angular spots 
are visible on the under-side of the wings of the male, but are 
rarely seen on their upper side ; the hind-wings in both are 
rounded and not tailed. These moths expand from three inches 
and three quarters to four inches and a quarter. The female 
deposits her eggs on the twigs of the trees, in little clusters of five 
or six together, and these are hatched towards the end of July or 
early in August. The caterpillars usually come to their full size 
by the beginning of September, and then measure two inches or 
more in length, when extended, and about half an inch in diame- 
ter. The body of the caterpillar is very plump, and but very 
little contracted on the back between the rings. It is of a clear 
and pale bluish green color ; the head, the feet, and the tail are 
yellow ; there are about eight warts on each of the rings ; the two 
uppermost warts on the top of the second and of the third rings 
are almost cylindrical, much longer than the rest, and of a rich 
coral-red color ; there is a long yellow wart on the top of the 
eleventh ring ; all the rest of the warts are very small, and of a 
deep blue color. Before making its cocoon the caterpillar in- 
stinctively fastens to the branch the leaf that is to serve for a 
cover to its cocoon, so that it shall not fall off in the autumn, and 
then proceeds to spin on the upper side of the leaf, bending over 
the edges to form a hollow, within which its cocoon is concealed. 

" Adas was the brother of Prometheus, and this name, it will be recollected, has 
been given to another of the Bombyces, an immensely large moth from China. 

36 



282 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The Luna, Polyphemus, Cecropia, and Promethea moths are 
the only native insects belonging to the genus Jlttacus which are 
known to me. Their large cocoons, consisting entirely of silk, 
the fibres of which far surpass those of the silk-worm in strength, 
might perhaps be employed in the formation of fabrics similar to 
those manufactured in India from the cocoons of the tusseh and 
arrindy silk-worms, the durability of which is such, that a garment 
of tusseh silk " is scarcely worn out in the lifetime of one person, 
but often descends from mother to daughter ; and even the cov- 
ers of palanquins made of it, though exposed to the influence of 
the weather, last many years." The method, employed by the 
inhabitants of India for unwinding the cocoons of their native silk- 
worms, would probably apply equally well to those of our coun- 
try, which have not yet, that I am aware of, been submitted to the 
same process. It is true that experiments, upon a very limited 
scale, have been made with the silk of the Cecropia, which has 
been carded and spun and woven into stockings, that are said to 
wash like linen. The Rev. Samuel Pullein was among the first 
to attempt to unwind the cocoons of the Cecropia moth, an ac- 
count of which is contained in the "Philosophical Transactions 
of the Royal Society of London" for the year 1759*. Mr. Pul- 
lein ascertained that twenty threads of this silk twisted together 
would sustain nearly an ounce more in weight than the same num- 
ber of common silk. Mr. Moses Bartram, of Philadelphia, in the 
year 1767, succeeded in bringing up the caterpillars from the 
eggs of the Cecropia moth, and obtained several cocoons from 
themf. In the Paris " Journal des Debats," of the twenty- 
third of July, 1840, is an account of the complete success of Mr. 
Audouin, in rearing the caterpillars of this or of some other 
American species of Attacus, the cocoons of which were sent to 
him from New Orleans. The Cecropia does not bear confine- 
ment well, and is not so good a subject for experiment as the 
Luna and Polyphemus, which are easily reared, and make their 
cocoons quite as well in the house as in the open air. The fol- 



* Vol. LI., p. 54. 

t See " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia," 
Vol. 1., p. 294. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 283 

lowing circumstances seem particularly to recommend these indi- 
genous silk-worms to the attention of persons interested in the 
silk culture. Our native oak and nut trees aflbrd an abundance 
of food for the caterpillars ; their cocoons are much heavier than 
those of the silk-worm, and will yield a greater quantity of silk ; 
and, as the insects remain unchanged in the chrysalis state from 
September to June, the cocoons may be kept for unwinding at any 
leisure time during the winter. By a careful search, after the 
falling of the leaves in the autumn, a sufficient number of cocoons 
may be found, under the oak and nut trees, with which to begin a 
course of experiments in breeding the insects, and in the manufac- 
ture of their silk. 

Two more moths, belonging to the family under consideration, 
are found in Massachusetts. They may be referred to the genus 
Saturnia*, and are distinguished from the foregoing by their an- 
tennas, which are widely feathered only in the males, the feather- 
ing being very narrow in the other sex ; their caterpillars, more- 
over, are furnished with small warts crowned with long prickles 
or branching spines. None of the caterpillars described in the 
preceding pages are venomous, all of them may be handled with 
impunity. This is not the case with the two following kinds, the 
prickles of which sting severely. The first of these begin to ap- 
pear by the middle of June, and other broods continue to be 
hatched till the middle of July. These caterpillars hve on the 
balsam poplar and the elm, and, according to Mr. Abbot, on the 
dogwood or cornel, and the sassafras ; they feed well also on the 
leaves of clover and Indian corn. They are of a pea-green color, 
with a broad brown stripe edged below with white on each side of 
the body, beginning on the fourth ring and ending at the tail ; they 
are covered with spreading clusters of green prickles, tipped with 
black, and of a uniform length ; each of these clusters consists of 
about thirty prickles branching from a common centre, and there 
are six clusters on each of the rings except the last two, on which 
there are only five, and on the first four rings, on each of which 
there is an additional cluster low down on each side ; the feet are 
brown, and there is a triangular brown spot on the under-side of 



The sirname of Juno, the daughter of Saturn. 



284 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

each ring, beginning with the fourth. The prickles are exceed- 
ingly sharp, sting very severely when the insect is handled, and 
produce the same kind of irritation as those of the nettle. When 
young, these caterpillars keep together in little swarms. They do 
not spin a common web, but, when not eating, they creep under a 
leaf, where they cluster side by side. In going from or returning 
to their place of shelter they move in regular files, like the pro- 
cessionary caterpillars (Lnsiocampa processionea) of Europe, a 
single caterpillar taking the lead, and followed closely by perhaps 
one or two in single file, after which come two, side by side, 
close upon the heels of these creep three more, the next rank 
consists of four, and so on, the ranks continually widening behind, 
like a flock of wild-geese on the wing, but in perfectly regular or- 
der. When about half grown they disperse, and each one shirks 
for himself. At the age of eight weeks they get to their full size, 
in the meanwhile moulting their skins four times, and finally 
measure two inches and a half or more in length. At this age 
they leave off eating, crawl to the ground, and get under leaves or 
rubbish, which they draw round their bodies to form an outer 
covering, within which they make an irregular and thin cocoon, 
of very gummy brown silk, that has almost the texture of thin 
parchment. As soon as their cocoons are finished, the insects 
are changed to chrysalids, in which form they remain throughout 
the winter, and in the following summer, during the month of 
June, or beginning of July, they come out in the winged or moth 
state. The scientific name of these moths is Saturnia lo*. Un- 
like those of the genus Attacus, they sit with their wings closed, 
and covering the body like a low roof, the front edge of the un- 
der wings extending a little beyond that of the upper wings, and 
curving upwards. The two sexes differ both in color and size. 
The male, which is the smallest, is of a deep or Indian yellow 
color ; on its fore-wings there are two oblique wavy lines towards 
the hind margin, a zigzag line near the base, and several spots so 
arranged on the middle as to form the letters A H, all of a pur- 
phsh red color; the hind-wings are broadly bordered with pur- 



* lo, a priestess of Juno, in Greece, afterwards became the wife of Osiris, the 
king of Egypt, and received divine honors under the name of Isis. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 285 

plish red next to the body, and near the hinder margin there is a 
narrow curved band of the same color ; within this band there is 
a curved black line, and on the middle of the wing a large round 
blue spot, having a broad black border and a central white dash. 
The fore-wings of the female are purple-brown, mingled with 
gray ; the zigzag and wavy lines across them are gray, and the 
lettered space in the middle is replaced by a brown spot sur- 
rounded by an irregular gray line ; the hind-wings resemble those 
of the male in color and markings ; the thorax and legs are pur- 
ple-brown ; and the abdomen is ochre-yellow with a narrow pur- 
ple-red band on the edge of each ring. These moths expand 
from two inches and three quarters to three inches and a half. 

The other Saiumia, inhabiting Massachusetts, is the Maia* of 
Drury, or Proserpina] of Fabricius. The moth probably rests 
with its wings closed, like the lo moth, the fore- wings covering 
the other pair, the front edge of which seems formed to extend a 
little beyond that of the fore-wings in this position. The wings 
are thin and almost transparent like crape ; they are black, and 
both pairs are crossed by a broad yellow-white band, near the 
middle of which, on each wing, there is a kidney-shaped black 
spot having a central yellow-white crescent or curved line on it ; 
the thorax is covered with black hairs on the top, pale yellow 
hairs on the forepart, and has two tufts of rust-red hairs behind ; 
the abdomen is black, with a few yellowish hairs along the sides, 
and a patch of a rust-red color at the extremity, in the males. 
The wings expand from two inches and a half to three inches and 
one eighth. Saturnia Maia seems to be a very rare moth in 
Massachusetts ; I have never met with it alive, but have seen 
several specimens which were taken in this State. The time of 
its appearance here is not known to me with certainty ; but, if I 
am rightly informed, it has been found in July and the beginning 
of August, flying by day on the borders of oak woods, or resting 
on the shrub oaks which cover the sides of some of our high 
hills. Of the caterpillar I have seen only one specimen, which 

* Maia, in Mythology, was one of the seven daughters of Jltlas ; they were 
placed in the heavens after death, and formed the constellation called Pleiades. 
t Proserpina was the wife of Pluto, the god of the infernal regions. 



286 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

was found, fully grown, on an oak, towards the end of Septem- 
ber ; it was destroyed, however, before I had an opportunity of 
making a description of it. Mr. Abbot * has figured two of the 
caterpillars, which differ from each other in color and markings. 
They are nearly three inches long ; the head and all the feet are 
red; and on each of the rings there are six long branched prickles. 
One of these caterpillars is represented of a dusky brown color 
mingled with yellow, with yellow warts from which the prickles 
arise. The other is yellow, with red warts, and two black 
stripes along the back. Mr. Abbot states that these caterpillars, 
while small, feed together in company, but disperse as they grow 
large ; they eat the leaves of various kinds of oaks ; sting very 
sharply when handled ; and that they go into the ground to trans- 
form ; but he does not inform us whether they make cocoons. 
Probably their cocoons are like those of the lo moth, composed 
of a gummy membranaceous substance, covered either with leaves 
or with grains of earth. 

As far as I can ascertain, these six moths are the only Satur- 
nians which have been discovered east of the Mississippi, and 
they are commonly met with throughout the United States f . The 

* " Insects of Georgia," p. 99, pi. 50. 

t Mr. Audubon has figured two more, apparently sexes or varieties of one spe- 
cies, in the fourth volume of his magnificent " Birds of America", pi. 359 ; but 
has not named or described them. He informs me that they were taken by Mr. 
Nuttall near the Rocky Mountains. Through the kindness of Mr. Edward 
Doubleday, of Epping, England, the present possessor of one of the very speci- 
mens from which Mr. Audubon's drawing was made, an opportunity of examining 
and describing this fine insect has been granted to me. Though differing some- 
what from the other species of Saturnia, it approaches so near to the Maia that I 
shall not venture lo separate it from this genus, especially as the caterpillar and its 
habits are unknown. It may be called Saturnia Hera, the latter (a generical name 
proposed for it by Mr. Doubleday) is the name given by the Greeks to Juno. 
The specimen before me is a male. It resembles the Maia in form and size, but 
the wings are not quite so thin, and are more opake. The fore- wings, when the 
insect is resting, probably cover the hind-wings, the front edge of which appears 
to be formed to project a little beyond that of the fore-wings. It is of a pale yel- 
low color ; on each of the wings there is a kidney-shaped black spot between two 
transverse wavy black bands ; the outer margins are black ; the veins, from the 
external black band to the edge are marked with broad black lines ; and there is a 
short black line at the base of the fore-wings ; the head, forepart of the thorax, and 
upper sides of the legs are deep ochre-yellow ; and the rings of the abdomen are 
transversely banded with black at the base, and with ochre-yellow on their hinder 



LEPIDOPTERA. 287 

last of them, together with some foreign species, such as the Tau 
moth of Europe, seem naturally to conduct to the next family, 
which I call Ceratocampians (Ceratocampad^), after the name 
of the chief genus contained in it. This name, moreover, signi- 
fying horned caterpillar, serves to point out the principal peculi- 
arity of the caterpillars in this group ; they being armed with 
thorny points, of which those on the second ring, and sometimes 
also those on the third, are long, curved, and resemble horns. 
These caterpillars eat the leaves of forest-trees, and go into the 
ground to undergo their transformations without making cocoons. 
The rings of the chrysalis are surrounded by little notched ridges, 
the teeth of which, together with the strong prickles at the hinder 
end of the body, assist it in forcing its way upwards out of the 
earth, just as the moth is about to burst the skin of the chrysalis. 
The moths are very easily distinguished from all the foregoing by 
their antennae, which are short, and, in the males, are feathered on 
both sides for a little more than half the length of the stalk, and 
are naked from thence to the tip ; while those of the females are 
threadlike, and neither feathered nor toothed. The feelers (ex- 
cept in Ceratocampa, in which they are very distinct,) and the 
tongue are very small, and not ordinarily visible. There are no 
bristles and hooks to fasten together the wings, which, when at 
rest, are not spread, but are closed, the fore-wings covering the 
hinder pair, and the front edge of the latter, in most cases, ex- 
tends a little beyond that of the fore-wings. These are some of 
the principal characters on which I have ventured to establish 
this family, which is now, for the first time, pointed out as a pe- 
culiar group. I believe that it is exclusively American. 

One of the largest and most rare, and withal the most magnifi- 
cent of our moths is the Ceratocampa regalis, or regal walnut- 
moth. Its fore-wings are olive-colored, adorned with several 
yellow spots, and veined with broad red lines ; the hind-wings are 

edges. The kidney-shaped spots on the fore-wings have a very slender central 
yellow crescent, and those on the hind-wings touch the external black band. The 
wings expand three inches. The other moth, figured on the same plate in Mr. 
Audubon's work, which is probably the female of the foregoing, apparently differs 
from it only in being of a deep Indian yellow color, and in having the crescent in 
the middl^ of the kidney-shaped spots very distinct, whereas in the male it is 
almost obsolete. 



288 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

orange-red, with two large irregular yellow patches before, and a 
row of wedge-shaped olive-colored spots between the veins be- 
hind ; the head is orange-red ; the thorax is yellow, with the edge 
of the collar, the shoulder-covers, and an angular spot on the top 
orange-red ; the upper side of the abdomen, and the legs are also 
orange-red. Unlike the other moths of the same family, the feel- 
ers in this are distinct, cylindrical, and prominent, and the front 
edge of the hind-wings does not seem to be formed to extend be- 
yond that of the other pair when the wings are closed. It ex- 
pands from five to six inches. In the year 1828, I found three of 
the eggs of this fine insect on the black walnut on the twentieth 
of July and the fourth of August. They were just hatched at 
the time, and the caterpillars were near to them resting on a leaf. 
The position of these young insects was so peculiar as to attract 
attention, independently of the long branching spines with which 
the forepart of their body was armed. They were not stretched 
out in a straight line, neither were they hunched up like the cater- 
pillars of the Luna and Polyphemus moths ; but, when at rest, 
they bent the forepart of the body sidewise, so that the head 
nearly touched the middle of the side, and their long horn-like 
spines were stretched forwards, in a slanting direction, over the 
head. When disturbed they raised their heads and horns, and 
shook them from side to side in a menacing manner. These little 
caterpillars were nearly black ; on each of the rings, except the 
last two, there were six straight yellow thorns or spines, which 
were furnished on all sides with little sharp points like short 
branches. Of these branched spines, two on the top of the first 
ring, and four on the second and the third rings, or ten in all, 
were very much Longer than the rest, and were tipped with little 
knobs, ending in two points ; they were also movable, the insect 
having the power of dropping them almost horizontally over the 
head, and of raising them up again perpendicularly. On the 
eleventh ring there were seven spines, the middle one being long 
and knobbed like those on the forepart of the body ; on the last 
ring there were eleven short and branched spines. After casting 
its skin two or three times, the caterpillar becomes hghter colored, 
and gradually changes to green ; the knobs on the long spines dis- 
appear, their little points or branches do not increase in size, and 



LEPIDOPTERA. 289 

finally these spines become curved, turning backwards at their 
points, and resemble horns. When fully grown, the caterpillar 
measures from four to five inches in length, and about three quar- 
ters of an inch in diameter. It is of a green color, and trans- 
versely banded across each of the rings with pale blue ; there is a 
large blue-black spot on each side of the third ring ; the head and 
legs are orange-colored ; the ten long horn-like spines on the 
forepart of the body are orange-colored, with the tips and the 
points SI rrounding them black ; the other spines are short and 
black. Notwithstanding the great size, formidable appearance, 
and menacing motions of this insect, when handled it is perfectly 
harmless, and unable to sting or wound with its frightful horns. 
It lives solitary on walnut and hickory trees, the leaves of which 
it eats ; crawls down and goes into the ground towards the end of 
summer, and changes to a chrysalis without previously making a 
cocoon. Unfortunately my caterpillars died before the time for 
their transformation arrived ; and the chrysalis is known to me 
only from the figure given by Mr. Abbot*, in which I cannot dis- 
cover the transverse notched ridges or little teeth that are found 
on the chrysalids of the other insects belonging to the same family, 
and perhaps they do not exist on this one. The insect remains 
in the ground through the winter, and the nioth comes out in the 
following summer, during the month of June, if I am rightly 
informed. 1 have not been able to obtain one myself, and my 
description of the moth was made from a very fine specimen be- 
longing to a friend, who received it from New Bedford. 

Between the regal Ceratocampa and the smaller insects of this 
family belonging to the new genus Dryocamj}n, should be placed a 
noble moth, which partakes, in some respects, of the characters 
of both ; its horned caterpillar, particularly while young, when its 
horns are proportionally longer and more formidable in appear- 
ance than afterwards, resembles somewhat that of the Cerato- 
campa ; its chrysalis is exactly like that of a Dryocampa, and like 
the latter also, in the winged state, its feelers are minute, its hind- 
wings project beyond the front edges of the fore-wings when at 
rest, and its style of coloring is the same. In my Catalogue of 

* •' Insects of Georgia," p. 121, pi. 61. 
37 



290 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the " Insects of Massachusetts," I placed this moth, the imperi- 
alis of Drury, in the genus Ceratocampa, from which, however, 
it must be removed, on account of its very small feelers, and the 
position of its wings ; and I now refer it, with some hesitation, to 
the genus Dryocampa, with which it agrees so well in the moth 
state, although its caterpillar differs a good deal from those of the 
other insects of the same genus. The imperial moth, Dryocampa 
imperialism has wings of a fine yellow color, thickly sprinkled with 
purple-brown dots, with a large patch at the base, a small round 
spot near the middle, and a wavy band towards the hinder margin 
of each wing, of a light purple-brown color ; in the males there is 
another purple-brown spot, covering nearly the whole of the outer 
hind margin of the fore-wings, and united to the band near that 
part ; the body is yellow, shaded with purple-brown on the back, 
and with three spots of the same color on the thorax. It expands 
from four inches and a half to more than five inches. In a variety 
of this moth, of which I have a colored drawing done by Mr. 
Abbot, the purple-brown color prevails so much as to cover the 
wings, with the exception only of a large triangular yellow spot 
contiguous to the front margin of each wing. This moth appears 
here from the twelfth of June to the beginning of July, and then 
lays its eggs on the button-wood tree. The caterpillars may be 
found upon this tree, grown to their full size, between the twen- 
tieth of August and the end of September, during which time 
they descend from the trees to go into the ground. They are 
then from three to four inches in length, and more than half an 
inch in diameter, and, for the most part, of a green color, slightly 
tinged with red on the back ; but many of them become more or 
less tanned or swarthy, and are sometimes found entirely brown. 
There are a ^ew very short hairs thinly scattered over the body ; 
the head and the legs are pale orange-colored ; the oval spiracles, 
or breathing holes, on the sides, are large and white, encircled 
with green ; on each of the rings, except the first, there are six 
thorny knobs or hard and pointed warts of a yellow color, cov- 
ered with short black prickles ; the two uppermost of these warts 
on the top of the second and of the third rings are a quarter of an 
inch or more in length, curved backwards like horns, and are of a 
deeper yellow color than the rest ; the three triangular pieces on 



LEPIDOPTERA. 291 

the posterior extremity of the body are brown, with yellow mar- 
gins, and are covered with raised orange-colored dots. The 
chrysalis, which is not contained in a cocoon, is about two inches 
long, of a dark chestnut-brown color, rough with little elevated 
points, particularly on the anterior extremity, ends behind with a 
long forked spine, and is surrounded, on each ring, with a notched 
ridge, the little teeth of which point towards the tail. Three of 
the grooves or incisions between the rings are very deep, thus 
allowing a great extent of motion to the joints, and these, with 
the notched ridges, and the long spine at the end of the body, 
enable the chrysalis to work its way upwards in the earth, above 
the surface of which it pushes the forepart of its body just before 
the moth makes its escape. 

Dryocampa^ oak or forest caterpillar, is a name originally ap- 
plied by me to certain insects, found sometimes in great numbers 
on oak-trees, which then suffer very severely from their ravages. 
Of these caterpillars there are several kinds, resembling each 
other in shape, and in the form and situation of the thorns with 
which they are armed, but differing in color, and in the moths 
produced from them. They live together in swarms, but do not 
make webs ; their bodies are cylindrical, remarkably hard and 
stif}', naked or not hairy, and have, on each ring, about six short 
thorns, or sharp points, besides two on the top of the second ring, 
which are long, slender, and threadlike, but not flexible, and pro- 
ject in the manner of horns. The most common of these cater- 
pillars in Massachusetts is black, with four narrow ochre-yellow 
stripes along the back, and two on each side. It is found in 
swarms of several hundreds together, on the limbs of the white 
and red oaks, during the month of August. The eggs from which 
they proceed are laid in large clusters on the under-side of a leaf 
near the end of a branch.. The caterpillars are hatched towards 
the end of July, but sometimes earlier, and at other times later. 
At first they eat only the youngest leaves at the end of the 
branches and twigs, and, as they grow larger and stronger, pro- 
ceed downwards, devouring every leaf, to the midrib and foot- 
stalk, from one end of the branch to the other. They have their 
regular times for eating and for rest, and when they have finished 
their meals, they cluster closely together along the twigs and 



292 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

branches. If disturbed, they raise the forepart of their bodies, 
and shake their heads to signify their displeasure. When fully 
grown they measure about two inches in length. Commonly in 
the early part of September, they crawl down the trees and go 
into the ground, to the depth of four or five inches, where they 
are changed to chrysalids. These resemble the chrysalids of the 
impeiial Dryocampa, but are much smaller, and like them they 
remain in the ground throughout the winter, and work their way 
up to the surface in the following summer. These chrysalids 
may often be seen sticking half way out of the ground under oak- 
trees in the latter part of June and the beginning of July, at which 
time the moths burst them open and make their escape. Dryo- 
camjja senotoria^ the senatorial Dryocampa, which is the name of 
this kind of moth, is of an ochre-yellow color ; the wings are 
faintly tinged with purplish red, especially on the front and hind 
margins, and are crossed by a narrow purple-brown band behind 
the middle ; the fore-wings are sprinkled with blackish dots, and 
have a small round white spot near the middle. The male is 
much smaller than the female, its wings are thinner, and more 
tinged with dull purple-red. It expands about an inch and three 
quarters ; the female two inches and a half, or more. 

Three more kinds of Dryocampa are found in Massachusetts, 
but they are all rare in this State. The largest of them is the 
stigma of Fabricius, or spotted-wing Dryocampa. It is of a red- 
dish ochre or deep tawny yellow color ; the fore-wings are tinged 
with purplish red behind, are thickly sprinkled with blackish dots, 
have a small round white spot near the middle, and a narrow ob- 
lique purple-red band behind ; the hind-wings have a narrow trans- 
verse purple-red band, behind which the border is sprinkled with 
a few black dots. It expands from one inch and three quarters 
to two inches and three quarters. The caterpillar, which I have 
not seen, is figured in Mr. Abbot's work *, where it is colored 
yellow, with black thorns on its back. It is said to live on the 
oak, in swarms, while young, but these disperse as the insects 
grow large. 

The following resembles the senatorial Dryocampa ; but is 

^ 

* "Insects of Georgia," p. Ill, pi. 56. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 293 

rather smaller, and is>^more delicate moth. The color of its 
body is ochre-yello^; the fore-wings of the male are purple- 
brown, with a large colorless transparent space on the middle, 
near which is a small round white spot, and towards the hinder 
margin a narrow oblique very faint dusky stripe ; the hind-wings 
are purple-brown, almost transparent in the middle, and with a 
very faint transverse dusky stripe ; the wings of the female are 
purplish red, blended with ochre-yellow, are almost transparent in 
the middle, and have the same white spots and faint bands as those 
of the male. It expands from one inch and three quarters to two 
inches and a quarter, or more in some females. The distinguish- 
ing name, given by Sir J. E. Smith* to this moth, is jjellucida, 
and we may call it the pellucid or clear-wing Dryocampa. I have 
only once seen the caterpillar, which was found on an oak on the 
twenty-fifth of September. It was about the size of that of the 
senatorial Dryocampa, and resembled it in every thing but color. 
Its head was rust-yellow, its body pea-green, shaded on the back 
and sides with red, longitudinally striped with very pale yellowish 
green, and armed with black thorns. 

The last of these insects is the rubicunda of Fabricius, or rosy 
Dryocampa. This delicate and very rare moth is found in Mas- 
sachusetts in July. Its fore-wings are rose-colored, crossed by a 
broad pale yellow band ; the hind-wings are pale yellow, with a 
short rosy band behind the middle ; the body is yellow ; the belly 
and legs are rose colored. It expands rather more than one inch 
and three quarters. The caterpillar is unknown to me f . 

All the Moth caterpillars thus far described in this essay, live 
more or less exposed to view, and devour the leaves of plants ; but 

* Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. Ho, pi. 58. 

t Only one more North American Dryocampa is known to me. This moth was 
taken in North Carolina, and does not appear to have been described. It may be 
called Dryocampa hicolor, ihe two-colored, or gray and red Dryocampa. The up- 
per side of the fore«wings and the under-side of the hind- wings are brownish o-ray 
sprinkled with black dots, and with a small round white spot near the middle and 
a narrow oblique dusky band behind it on the fore-wings; the upper side of the 
hind-wings, and the under-side of the fore- wings, except the front edo-eand hinder 
margin of the laUer, are crimson red; and the body is brownish gray. Tlie male 
expands two inches and a quarter. The female and the caterpillar of this insect I 
have not seen. 



294 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

there are others that are concealed from ol^ervation in stems and 
roots, which they pierce in various directioSsi and devour only 
the wood and pith ; their habits, in this respect, being exactly like 
those of the -^^gerians among the Sphinges. These insects be- 
long to a family of Bombyces, by some naturalists called Zeu- 
ZERAD^, and by others Hepialidje, both names derived from 
insects included in the same group. The caterpillars of the 
Zeuzerians are white or reddish white, soft and naked, or slightly 
downy, with brown horny heads, a spot on the top of the fore- 
part of the body which is also brown and hard, and sixteen legs. 
They make imperfect cocoons, sometimes of silk, and sometimes 
of morsels of wood or grains of earth fastened together by gummy 
silk. Tiieir chrysalids, like those of the Ceratocampians, are 
provided with notched transverse ridges on the rings, by means of 
which they push themselves out of their holes when ready to be 
transformed. The moths differ a good deal from each other, 
although the appearance and habits of the caterpillars are so much 
alike. The antennae in some are threadlike, or made up of nearly 
cylindrical joints put together like a string of beads ; in others 
they are more tapering, and doubly pectinated or toothed on the 
under-side, at least in the males ; and in Zeuzera, a kind of moth 
not hitherto found in this country, the antennae resemble those of 
the Ceratocampians, being half-feathered in the males, and not 
feathered in the females. The wings are rather long and narrow, 
and are strengthened by very numerous veins. The female is pro- 
vided with a kind of tube at the end of the body, that can be 
drawn in and out, by means of which she thrusts her eggs into the 
chinks of the bark or into the earth at the roots of plants. 

Of the root-eaters there is one kind which is very injurious to 
the hop-vine in Europe. It is called Hepiolus Humuti, the hop- 
vine Hepiolus. The caterpillar is yellowish white ; the head, a 
spot on the top of the first and second rings, and the six fore-legs 
are shining brown, and it is nearly naked, or has only a few short 
hairs scattered over its body. It lives in the roots of the hop, 
and, when about to transform, buries itself in the ground, and 
makes a long, cylindrical cocoon or case, composed of grains of 
earth held together by a loose silken web. The chrysalis has 
transverse rows of little teeth on the backs of the abdominal rings, 



LEPIDOPTERA. 295 

and by means of them it finally works its way out of the cocoon 
and rises to the suifuce of the ea th ; this being done, the included 
moth bursts its chrysalis shell, and comes forth into the open air. 
In moths of this kind (genus Hepiolus) the antennae are very 
short, slender, almost threadlike, and not feathered or pectinated ; 
the tongue is wanting or invisible ; and the feelers are excessively 
small, and concealed in a tuft of hairs. The hop-vine Hepiolus 
has not yet been detected in Massachusetts ; but we have a much 
larger species, known to me only in the moth state, which is the 
reason of my having given the foregoing account of the prepara- 
tory stages of a European species. This moth does not appear 
to have been described. It is named, in my Catalogue of the 
" Insects of Massachusetts," Hepiolus orgeiUeomaculatus, the 
silver-spotted Hepiolus. Its body and wings are rather long. It 
is of an ashen gray color ; the fore-wings are variegated with 
dusky clouds and bands, and have a small triangular spot and a 
round dot of a silvery white color near their base ; the hind-wings 
are tinged with ochre-yellow towards the tip. It expands two 
inches and three quarters. 

The locust-tree, Rohinia pseudacacia, is preyed upon by three 
different kinds of wood-eaters or borers, whose unchecked rav- 
ages seem to threaten the entire destruction and extermination of 
this valuable tree within this part of the United States. One of 
these borers is a little reddish caterpillar, whose operations are 
confined to the small branches and to very young trees, in the 
pith of which it lives ; and by its irritation it causes the twig to 
swell around the part attacked. These swellings, being spongy 
and also perforated by the caterpillar, are weaker than the rest of 
the stem, which therefore easily breaks off at these places. My 
attempts to complete the history of this insect have not been suc- 
cessful hitherto ; and I can only conjecture that it belongs to the 
iEgerians, or possibly to the tribe of Bombyces. 

The second kind of borer of the locust-tree is larger than the 
foregoing, is a grub, and not a caterpillar, which finally turns to the 
beetle named Clytus pictiis, the painted Clytus, already described 
on a preceding page of this essay. 

The third of the wood-eaters, to which the locust-tree is ex- 
posed, though less common than the others, and not so universally 



296 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

destructive to the tree as the painted Clytus, is a very much 
larger borer, and is occasionally productive of great injury, espe- 
cially to full-grown and old trees, for which it appears to have a 
preference. It is a true caterpillar, belonging to the tribe of 
moths under consideration, is reddish above, and white beneath, 
with the head and top of the first ring brown and shelly, and there 
are a (ew short hairs arising from minute warts thinly scattered 
over the surface of the body. When ful'y grovvp, it measures two 
inches and a half, or more, in length, and is nearly as thick as the 
end of the little finger. These caterpillars bore the tree in various 
directions, but for the most part obliquely upwards and down- 
wards through the solid wood, enlarging the holes as they in- 
crease in size, and continuing them through the bark to the out- 
side of the trunk. Before transforming, they line these passages 
with a web of silk, and, retiring to some distance from the orifice, 
they spin around their bodies a closer web, or cocoon, within 
which they assume the chrysalis form. The chrysalis measures 
one inch and a half or two inches in length, is of an amber color, 
changing to brown on the forepart of the body ; and, on the upper 
side of each abdominal ring, are two transverse rows of tooth-like 
projections. By the help of these, the insect, when ready for its 
last transformation, works its way to the mouth of its burrow, 
where it remains while the chrysalis skin is rent, upon which it 
comes forth on the trunk of the tree a winged moth. In this its 
perfected state, it is of a gray color ; the fore-wings are thickly 
covered with dusky netted lines and irregular spots, the hind- 
wings are more uniformly dusky, and the shoulder-covers are 
edged with black on the inside. It expands about three inches. 
The male, which is much smaller, and has been mistaken for an- 
other species, is much darker than the female, from which it 
differs also in having a large ochre-yellow spot on the hind-wings, 
contiguous to their posterior margin. Professor Peck, who first 
made public the history of this insect*, named it Cossvs Rohinice, 
the Cossus of the Locust-tree, scientifically called Rohinia. It is 
supposed by Professor Peck to remain three years in the cater- 

* See " Massachusells Agiicultural Repository and Journal," Vol. V., p. G7, 
with a plate. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 297 

pillar state. The moth comes forth about the middle of July. 
The same insect, or one not to be distinguished from it while 
a caterpillar, perforates the trunks of the red oak. Mr, New- 
man * has recently given the name of Xyleutes^ the carpenter, 
to the genus including this insect, instead of Cossus^ which it 
formerly bore, because the latter, being the name of a species, 
ought not to have been applied to a genus. The European 
carpenter-moth, called Bombyv Cossusf by Linnaeus, will now be 
the Xi/lcu(es Cossus ; and our indigenous species will be the 
Xyleutcs Robinue, or locust-tree carpenter-moth. The moths 
of this genus have thick and robust bodies, broad and thickly 
veined wings, two very distinct feelers, and antennas, which are 
furnished on the under-side, in both sexes, with a double set 
of short teeth, rather longer in the male than in the female. 
Their tongue is invisible. They give out a strong and peculiar 
smell, whence they are sometimes called goat-moths by English 
writers. 

Some caterpillars, which eat the leaves of plants, live in cases 
or long oval cocoons, open at both ends, and large enough for 
the insects to turn around within them, so as to go out of either 
end. They do not entirely leave these cases, even when moving 
from place to place, but cling to them on the inside with the legs 
of the hinder part of their bodies, while their heads and fore-legs 
are thrust out. Thus in moving they creep with their six fore- 
legs only, and drag along their cases after them as they go. 
These cases are made of silk within, and are covered on the out- 
side with leaves, bits of straw, or little sticks. The caterpillars 
are nearly cylindrical, generally soft and whitish, except the head 
and upper part of the first three rings, which are brown and hard ; 
they have sixteen legs ; the first three pairs are long, strong, and 
arrried with stout claws 4 the others are very short, consisting 
merely of slight wart-like elevations provided with numerous mi- 
nute clinging hooks. When they are about to change their forms 
their cases serve them instead of cocoons ; they fasten them by 
silken threads to the plant on which they live, stop up the holes 

* See " Entomological Magazine," Vol. V. p. 129. 

t Subsequently named Cossus ligniperda by Fabricius. 

38 



298 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

in them, and then throw ofF their caterpillar-skins. The chrysa- 
lids are remarkably blunt at the hinder extremity, and are pro- 
vided with transverse rows of minute teeth on the back of the 
abdominal rings. The moths, of which there are several kinds 
produced by these case-bearing caterpillars, differ very much 
from each other ; but, as they all agree in their habits and general 
appearance while in the caterpillar form, they are brought together 
in one family called Psychad^, the Psychians, from Psyche^ 
a genus belonging to it. The Germans give these insects a more 
characteristic name, that of sacJctrdger*, that is, sack-bearers, 
and Hiibner called them Canephorce^ or basket-carriers, because 
the cases of some of them are made of little sticks somewhat like 
a wicker basket. The cases of the insects belonging to the 
European genus Psyche are covered with small leaves, bits of 
grass or of sticks, placed lengthwise on them. The chrysalis of 
the male Psyche, pushes itself half-way out of the case when 
about to set free the moth ; the female, on the contrary, never 
leaves its cocoon, is not provided with wings, and its antennae and 
legs are very short. The male Psyche resembles somewhat the 
same sex of Orgyia, having pretty broad wings, and antennae that 
are doubly feathered on the under-side ; it has also a bristle and 
hook to hold the wings together. The cases of Oiketicus-f^ 
another and much larger kind of sack-bearer, inhabiting the West 
Indies and South America, are covered with pieces of leaves and 
of sticks arranged either longitudinally or transversely. The 
cases of some of the females, measure four or five inches in 
length. Some which I received from Cuba were covered with 
little bits of sticks, about a quarter of an inch long, arranged 
transversely, and the cases were hung by a thick silken loop or 
ring to a twig ; the lower end of these cases was filled with a 
large quantity of loose and very soft brownish floss-silk, which 
completely closed the orifice within. The male Oiketicus resem- 
bles a Zeuzera in the form and great length of its body, in the 
shape of its wings, and in its antennae, and in both the latter it 

* See Germar's " Magazin der Entomologie," Vol. I. p. 19. 
t This name ought to be (Eceticus. See Mr. Guilding's description of the in- 
pect in the "Transactions of the Linncean Society," Vol. XV. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 299 

resembles also the same sex of a Dri/ocampa, particularly in its 
antennae, which are feathered on both sides on the lower part of 
the stalk, and are bare at the other end. The female has neither 
wings, antennae, nor legs, and is said to remain always within its 
cocoon. Some years ago, a case or cocoon of an Oikcticus, 
which was found on Long Island, was presented to me. It was 
smaller than the West Indian specimens, measuring only an inch 
and a half without its loop, and was covered with a few little 
sticks longitudinally arranged. It contained a female chrysalis, 
with the remains of the caterpillar. 

We have, in Massachusetts, another sack-bearer, which does 
not appear to have been described, and differs so much both from 
Psyche and Oiketicus, when arrived at maturity, as to induce me 
to give it another generical name. I therefore call it Perophora 
Melsheimerii * , Melsheimer's sack-bearer. A case of this insect, 
containing a living caterpillar, was brought to me towards the end 
of September, by a student of Harvard University, Mr. H. O. 
White, who found it on an oak-tree in Cambridge. This case 
was nearly an inch and a half long, and about half an inch in di- 
ameter. It was not regularly oval, but somewhat flattened on its 
lower side. It consisted externally of two oblong oval pieces of 
a leaf, fastened together in the neatest manner by their edges, but 
the seams made a little ridge on each side of the case; this had 
become dry and faded, and was lined within with a thick and 
tough layer of brownish silk, in which there was left, at each end, 
a circular opening just big enough for the caterpillar to pass 
through. The caterpillar was cylindrical, about as thick as a 
common pipe-stem, of a light reddish brown color with a paler 
line along the back ; it was rough, with little elevated points ; its 
head and the top of the first ring were black, hard, and rough 
also. The head was provided with a pair of jointed feelers, 
which the insect extended and drew in at pleasure, and which, 
when they were out, were kept in continual motion. On each side 
of the middle of the head, there was a black and flexible kind of 

* Named in honor of Dr. F. E. Melsheimer, (the son of the Rev. F. V. Melshei- 
mer, the father of American Entomology, as he has been called,) from whom I 
have received specimens of this insect, and its curious case. 



300 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

antenna, very slender where it joined the head, and broader to- 
wards the end, hke the handle of a spoon. The first three pairs 
of legs were equal in length, and armed with stout horny claws. 
The other legs, if such they could be called, were ten in number, 
and so short that only the oval soles of the feet were visible, and 
these were surrounded by numerous minute hooks. The tail-end 
of the body was as blunt as if it had been cut off with a knife ; it 
sloped a little backwards, and consisted of a circular horny plate, 
of a dark gray color, which, when the caterpillar retired within 
its case, exactly shut up one of the holes in it. This caterpillar 
eat the leaves of the oak, and fed mostly by night ; while eating 
it came half way, or more, out of its cocoon ; and in moving laid 
hold of the leaf with its fore-legs, and then shortened its body 
suddenly, so as to bring its cocoon after it with a jerk ; and, in 
this way, it went by jerks from place to place. When it had 
done eating, it moored its case to a leaf by a few silken threads 
fastened to one, and sometimes to both ends ; and before moving 
again, it came out and bit off these threads close to the case. It 
could turn round easily within its case, and go out of either end, 
as occasion required. So tenaciously did it cling to the inside 
of its case with the little hooks of its hinder feet, that all attempts 
to make it come wholly out, except by a force which would have 
been fatal to the insect, were without effect. This kind of cater- 
pillar prepares for transformation by fastening both ends of its 
cocoon to a branch, and then stops up each of the holes in it with 
a little circular silken lid, exactly fitting the orifice, and made 
about the thickness of common brown paper. There is no great 
difference in the size or form of the chrysalids which produce the 
male and female moths ; they are about three quarters of an inch 
in length ; on both of them the sheaths for the wings, antennae, 
and legs are alike, and are as plainly to be seen as on the chrysa- 
lids of other winged moths. The chrysalis tapers very little, and 
does not end Vv'ith a point, but is blunt behind ; and on the edge 
of each of the rings of the back, there is a transverse row of little 
pointed teeth which shut into corresponding notches in the ring 
immediately behind them. These teeth are evidently designed 
to enable the chrysalis to move towards the mouth of its case, and 
to hold with, when it is engaged in forcing off the lid in order to 



LEPIDOPTERA. 301 

allow of the escape of the moth. I do not know at what time the 
moths come out in Massachusetts ; they have been taken in July, 
in Virginia. Both sexes leave their cocoons when arrived at 
maturity, and both are provided with wings. Their feelers are 
of moderate size, cylindrical, blunt pointed, and thickly covered 
with scales. The tongue is not visible. Their antennae are 
curved, and are recurved or bent upwards at the point ; the stalk 
is feathered, in a double row, on the under-side, very widely, in 
the males, for more than half its length, and beyond the middle 
the feathery fringe is suddenly narrowed, and tapers thence to the 
tip ; in the females the antennae are also doubly feathered, but the 
fringe is narrower throughout than in the other sex. The body 
and the wings almost exactly resemble those of the foreign silk- 
worm moth in shape ; but the fore-wings are rather more pointed 
and hooked at the tip. There are no bristles and hooks to hold 
together the wings, which, when at rest, cover the sides like a slop- 
ing roof, and the front edge of the hind-wings does not project 
beyond that of the fore-wings. These moths are of a reddish 
gray color, finely sprinkled all over with minute black dots ; the 
posterior margin of the hind-wings above, and the under-side of 
the fore-wings, especially behind the tip, are tinged with tawny 
red ; there is a small black dot near the middle of the fore-wings ; 
and both the fore and hind wings are crossed by a narrow black- 
ish band, beginning with an angle on the front edge of the former, 
and passing obliquely backwards to the inner edge of the hind- 
wings. They expand from one inch and three eighths to two 
inches, or a little more. 

The last family of the Bombyces, remaining to be noticed, may 
be called Notodontians (NoTODONTADiE). Many of the cater- 
pillars belonging to it have hunched backs, or tooth-like promi- 
nences on the back ; and Jience the origin of the name of this fam- 
ily, which comes from a word signifying toothed-back. Most of 
these caterpillars are entirely naked ; some of them are downy 
or slightly hairy, but the hairs generally grow immediately from 
the skin, and not in spreading clusters from little warts on the 
rings. They have sixteen legs ; some raise the last pair when at 
rest, and some keep these always elevated and do not use them in 
creeping, in which case these terminal legs are lengthened, and 



302 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

form a forked appendage or tail to the hinder part of the body. 
Hence such caterpillars are often described as having only four- 
teen legs, although the wanting members really exist in a modi- 
fied form. Moreover the caterpillars of some of the Notodonti- 
ans seem to be without legs, and even on close examination only 
the soles of the feet can be perceived. The Notodontians are 
found chiefly on trees and shrubs, the leaves of which they eat. 
When about to be transformed, the most of them enclose them- 
selves in cocoons, which are often very hard and thick, made 
either of silk, or of silk mixed with fragments of wood and bark ; 
some make thin, semitransparent, and filmy cocoons under a 
covering of leaves ; some merely cover themselves with grains 
of earth, held together by silken threads ; and a very few go into 
the ground to transform, without making cocoons. The chrysa- 
lids taper behind, and are not provided with transversed notched 
ridges on the back. The moths close their wings over the sides 
of the body like a sloping roof, when at rest ; but the front edges 
of the hind-wings never extend beyond those of the fore-wings, 
and the bristles and hooks for holding the wings together, are 
never wanting. The antennae are rather long ; those of the males 
are generally doubly feathered on the under-side ; but the feath- 
ery fringe is often very narrow towards the tips, and, in the fe- 
males, is always narrower than in the other sex ; in a few of both 
sexes the antennae are not feathered at all. The feelers and 
tongue, though short, are generally visible. The body is rather 
long, and not very thick. In what follows, a few only of the 
most remarkable species will be described. 

Among the many odd-shaped caterpillars belonging to this fam- 
ily, not the least remarkable are those which are called Lima- 
codes, that is, slug-like, on account of their seeming want of 
feet, their very slow gliding motions, and the slug-like form of 
some of them. In these caterpillars the body is very short and 
thick, and approaches more or less to an oval form, it is naked, 
or, in some kinds, covered only with short down ; the head is 
small, and can be drawn in and concealed under the first ring ; 
the six fore-legs are also small and retractile ; and the other legs 
consist only of little fleshy elevations, without claws or hooks. 
The under-side of the body is smeared with a sticky fluid, which 



LEPIDOPTERA. 303 

seems designed to render their footing more secure, and leaves a 
slimy track wherever the insects go. Their cocoons are very 
small, almost round, tough, and parchment-like, and are fastened 
to the twigs of the plants on which the insects live. The moths 
of some, if not of all, of the Limacodes make their escape by 
pushing off one end of the cocoon, which separates like a little 
circular lid. 

The most common of these slug-caterpillars, in Massachusetts, 
live on walnut-trees. They come to their full size in September 
and October, and then measure five eighths of an inch in length, 
and rather more than three eighths across the middle. The body 
is thick, and its outline nearly diamond-shaped ; the back is a lit- 
tle hollowed, and the middle of each side rises to an obtuse angle ; 
it is of a green color, with the elevated edges brown. The boat- 
like form of this caterpillar induced me to name it Limacodes 
Scaphrt, the skiff Limacodes, in my Catalogue of the " Insects 
of Massachusetts." My specimens generally died after they had 
made their cocoons, and consequently the moth is unknown 
to me. 

The moth of a Limacodes^ called Cippus * by Sir J. E. 
Smith, is sometimes found in Massachusetts, from the middle of 
July till the tenth of August. It is of a reddish brown color ; on 
each of the fore-wings there is a small dark brown dot near the 
middle, and a broad wavy green band beginning at the base, and 
bending round till it touches the front margin near the tip ; behind 
a deep notch of this band, near the base of the wing, there is a 
triangular tawny spot, and another smaller one near the tip. The 
green band is sometimes broken into three triangular green spots, 
the middle one of which is wanting in some specimens. One half of 
the stalk of the antennse of the male is doubly feathered beneath ; 
the remainder to the tip is bare. The antennae of the female are 
thread-like and not fringed. The wings expand from one inch 
to one inch and one eighth. The caterpillar figured by Mr. 

* Probably not the true Cj/j^ms of Fabricius, which is found in Surinam. There 
is a figure of our species in Guurin's " Iconographie du Regne Animal," where 
it is named Limacodes Delphinii, but for what reason I know not, for it does not 
live on the Delphinium or larkspur. 



304 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Abbot * is oblong oval, striped with purple and yellow, with 
twelve fleshy horns, of an orange color, on the sides of its back, 
namely six on the forepart, two on the middle, and four on the 
hind-part of the body. Mr. Abbot says that it eats the leaves of 
the dogwood [Cornus Florida), oak, and of other trees ; that it 
makes its cocoon in September, and that the moth comes out in 
July. 

A still more extraordinary slug-caterpillar, having a very re- 
mote resemblance to the last, is sometimes seen here on oak-trees, 
in the month of September. It is of a dark brown color, and is 
covered with a short velvet-like down ; its body is almost oblong 
square, but the sides of the rings extend horizontally in the form 
of flattened teeth ; three of these teeth on each side, that is, one 
on the forepart, the middle, and the hind-part of the body, are 
much longer than the others, and are curved backwards at the end. 
When fully grown, the caterpillar measures nearly an inch in 
length. It does not bear confinement well, and my specimens 
generally died without making cocoons. Dr. Melsheimer, to 
whom I am indebted for one of the moths, informs me that the 
caterpillar eats the leaves of the wild cherry, as well as those of 
the white and red oak, that it makes its cocoon about the middle 
of September, changes to a chrysalis the following April, and 
that the moth appears in about eight weeks afterwards. The 
name given to this insect by Sir J. E. Smith f is pitheciiun, the 
meaning of which is a shrivelled and monkey-faced old woman, 
bestowed upon it probably on account of the shrivelled appear- 
ance and dark color of the caterpillar. In its winged state, Lima- 
codes pithecium, or the hag-moth, as it may be called, is of a 
dusky brown color ; its fore-wings are variegated with light yel- 
lowish brown, and with a narrow curved and wavy band, of the 
same light color, edged externally with dark brown near the outer 
margin, and a light brown spot near the middle ; the fringes of 
all the wings are spotted with light brown ; the legs are covered 
with long hairs ; the antennae, in both sexes, are slender, almost 



* " Insects of Georgia," p. 145, pi. 73. 

t Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 147, pi. 74. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 305 

thread-like, and not feathered. It expands from nearly one inch 
to one inch and a quarter. 

There is a kind of caterpillar, found in July and August on the 
balsam poplar, and sometimes on other poplars and willows, 
whose form, posture, and motions are so odd as at once to arrest 
attention. Its body is naked, short, and thick, tapers behind and 
ends with a forked kind of tail, which is held upwards at an ob- 
tuse angle with the rest of the body. This forked tail, which 
takes the place of the hindmost pair of legs, the others being 
only fourteen in number, is not used with the latter in creeping, 
and consists of two movable hollow tubes, within each of which 
is concealed a long orange-colored thread that the insect can 
push out and draw in at pleasure. The feet are short and small ; 
the head is small, of a purple color, and can be drawn under 
the front part of the first ring ; the body is green, with a trian- 
gular purple spot on the top of the forepart, and a large diamond- 
shaped patch, of the same color, covering the back and middle of 
the sides like a mantle, and prolonged behind to the tail. When 
young, these caterpillars have, on the top of the first ring, two 
little prickly warts, which disappear after one or two changes of 
the skin. When teazed by being touched or irritated by flies, the 
caterpillar runs out the threads from its forked tail, which it jerks 
forwards so as to lash the sides of its body and whip off the in- 
truder. When fully grown, it measures sometimes an inch and a 
half in length, without including the terminal fork. Caterpillars 
of this kind are called Cerwa, horned-tail, by some, and Dicran- 
ura, forked-tail, by other naturalists. Early in August the one 
above described makes a tough cocoon of bits of wood and bark 
glued together with a sticky matter, and fastened to the side of 
a branch, the lower side being flat and the upper convex. The 
last transformation occurs about the middle of June, when, after 
the end of the cocoon has been softened by a liquid thrown out 
by the insect within, the moth forces its way through. This in- 
sect has been figured in Mr. Abbot's work,* where it is called 
furculo, a name, however, which belongs to an European insect. 
It is also represented in Guerin's " Iconographie " and in Griffith's 

* " Insects of Georgia," p. 141. pi. 71. 
39 



306 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

translation of Cuvier's " Animal Kingdom ; " and I have adopted 
the specific name given to it by Dr. Boisduval in these works. 
Cerura horealis^ the northern Cerura or fork-tail moth, like 
others of the genus, has the antennae feathered in both sexes, but 
narrow, and tapering and bent upwards at the point ; the legs, 
especially the first pair, which are stretched out before the body 
when at rest, are, like those of our native Limacodes, very hairy ; 
and the wings are thin and almost transparent. The ground-color 
of our moth is a dirty white ; the fore-wings are crossed by two 
broad blackish bands, the outer one of which is traversed and in- 
terrupted by an irregular wavy whitish line ; the hinder margins 
of all the wings are dotted with black, and there are several 
black dots at the base and a single one near the middle of the 
fore-wings ; the top of the thorax is blackish, and the collar is 
edged with black. In some individuals the dusky bands of the 
fore-wings are edged or dotted with tawny yellow ; in others 
these wings are dusky, and the bands are indistinct. They ex- 
pand from one inch and three eighths to one inch and three 
quarters. 

Here should be placed some insects belonging to Mr. Doub- 
leday's proposed genus Balia, whose caterpillars strongly resem- 
ble those of Cerura, while the moths have most of the characters 
of the European genus Stauropus or Harpya. These insects, 
though not uncommon in the Middle and Southern States, have 
not yet been found in Massachusetts. They evidently lead, 
through Harpya Ulmi and Milhauseri, to the Notodontians called 
unicornis and concinna. 

The following insects, for the sake of convenience, may be 
included in the old genus JYotodonta. The first of them is found 
in August and September on plum and apple trees, and, accord- 
ing to Mr. Abbot*, on the red-berried alder, Prinos verticillatus. 
The top of the fourth ring of this caterpillar rises in the form of 
a long horn, sloping forwards a little; the tail, with the hindmost 
feet, which are rather longer than the others, is always raised 
when the insect is at rest, but it generally uses these legs in 
walking ; its head is large, and of a brown color ; the sides of 

* "Insects of Georgia," p. 171, pi. 86. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 307 

the second and third rings are green ; the rest of the body is 
brown, variegated with white on the back, and on it there are a 
very few short hairs, hardly visible to the naked eye. When fully 
grown, it measures an inch or more in length. Though mostly 
solitary in their habits, sometimes three or four of these caterpil- 
lars are found near together, and eating the leaves of the same twig. 
Towards the end of September they descend from the trees, and 
make their cocoons, which are thin and almost transparent, re- 
sembling parchment in texture, and are covered generally with 
bits of leaves on the outside. The caterpillars remain in their 
cocoons a long time before changing to chrysalids, and the moth 
does not come out till the following summer. There are proba- 
bly two broods in the course of one season, for I have taken the 
moths early in August. In Georgia the caterpillar made its cocoon 
on the thirtieth of May, and was transformed to a moth fourteen 
days afterwards. This moth is the Nolodonta unicornis^ or uni- 
corn moth, so called from the horn on the back of the caterpillar. 
Tlie fore-wings are light brown, variegated with patches of green- 
ish white and with wavy dark brown lines, two of which enclose a 
small whitish space near the shoulders ; there is a short blackish 
mark near the middle ; the tip and the outer hind margin are 
whitish, tinged with red in the males; and near the outer hind 
angle there are one small white and two black dashes ; the hind- 
wings of the male are dirty white, with a dusky spot on the inner 
hind angle ; those of the female are sometimes entirely dusky ; 
the body is brownish, and there are two narrow black bands across 
the forepart of the thorax. The wings expand from one inch and 
a quarter to one inch and a half, or nearly. 

Our fruit-trees seem to be peculiarly subject to the ravages 
of insects, probably because the native trees of the forest, which 
originally yielded the insects an abundance of food, have been 
destroyed to a great extent, and their places supplied only par- 
tially by orchards, gardens, and nurseries. Numerous as are the 
kinds of caterpillars now found on cultivated trees, some are 
far more abundant than others, and therefore more often fall un- 
der our observation, and come to be better known. Such, for 
instance,^ are certain gregarious caterpillars that swarm on the 
apple, cherry, and plum trees towards the end of summer, strip- 



308 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ping whole branches of their leaves, and not unfrequently despoil- 
ing our rose-bushes and thorn hedges also. These caterpillars 
are of two kinds, very different in appearance, but alike in habits 
and destructive propensities. The first of these may be called 
the red-humped, a name that will probably bring these insects to 
the remembrance of those persons who have ever observed them. 
Different broods make their appearance at various times during 
August and September. The eggs, from which they proceed, 
are laid, in the course of the month of July, in clusters on the 
under-side of a leaf, generally near the end of a branch. When 
first hatched they eat only the substance of the under-side of the 
leaf, leaving the skin of the upper side and all the veins un- 
touched ; but as they grow larger and stronger they devour whole 
leaves from the point to the stalk, and go from leaf to leaf down 
the twigs and branches. The young caterpillars are lighter colored 
than the old ones, which are yellowish brown, paler on the sides, 
and longitudinally striped with slender black lines ; the head is 
red ; on the top of the fourth ring there is a bunch or hump, also 
of a red color ; along the back are several short black prickles ; 
and the hinder extremity tapers somewhat, and is always elevated 
at an angle with the rest of the body, when the insect is not 
crawling. The full-grown caterpillars measure one inch and a 
quarter, or rather more, in length. They rest close together on 
the twigs, when not eating, and sometimes entirely cover the 
small twigs and ends of the branches. The early broods come 
to their growth and leave the trees by the middle of August, and 
the others between this time and the latter part of September. 
All the caterpillars of the same brood descend at one time, and 
disappear in the night. They conceal themselves under leaves, 
or just beneath the surface of the soil, and make their cocoons, 
which resemble those of the unicorn Notodonta. They remain a 
long time in their cocoons before changing to chrysalids, and are 
transformed to moths towards the end of June or the beginning of 
July. Mr. Abbot* states that in Georgia these insects breed 
twice a year, the first broods making their cocoons towards the 
end of May, and appearing in the winged form fifteen days after- 

* " Insects of Georgia," p. 169, pi. 85. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 309 

wards. This Notodonta is a neat and trim looking moth, and is 
hence called concinna by Sir J. E. Smith. It is of a light brown 
color ; the fore-wings are dark brown along the inner margin, and 
more or less tinged with gray before ; there is a dark brown dot 
near the middle, a spot of the same color near each angle, a very 
small triangular whitish spot near the shoulders, and several dark 
brown longitudinal streaks on the outer hind margin ; the hind- 
wings of the male are brownish or dirty white, with a brown spot 
on the inner hind'angle ; those of the other sex are dusky brown; 
the body is light brown, with the thorax rather darker. The 
wings expand from one inch to one inch and three eighths. 

There are ten or more kinds of Notodonta in Massachusetts, 
all of them differing from the preceding, and more or less from 
each other ; the caterpillars of the last of them are cylindrical, 
with only a slight elevation or wart-like prominence on the top of 
the eleventh ring ; but as these insects, however interesting as 
objects of natural history, are not particularly worthy of notice 
on any other account, they must be passed by here, without further 
remarks. 

Every person who has paid any attention to the cultivation of 
the grape-vine in this country must have observed upon it, be- 
sides the large sphinx caterpillars that devour its leaves, a small 
blue caterpillar transversely banded with deep orange across the 
middle of each ring, the bands being dotted with black, with the 
head and feet also orange, the top of the eleventh ring somewhat 
bulging, and the forepart of the body hunched up when the crea- 
ture is at rest. These caterpillars begin to appear about the mid- 
dle of July, and others are hatched afterwards, as late, perhaps, 
as the middle of August. When not eating they generally rest 
upon the under-sides of the leaves, and, though many may be 
found on one vine, they do not associate with each other. They 
live on the common creeper as well as on the grape-vine. They 
eat all parts of the leaves, even to the midrib and stalks. When 
fully grown, and at rest, they measure an inch and a quarter, but 
stretch out, in creeping, to the length of an inch and a half or 
more. Towards the end of August they begin to disappear, and 
no mor^ will be found on the vines after September. They 
creep down the vines in the night, and go into the ground, bury- 



310 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ing themselves three or four inches deep, and turn to chrysahds 
without making cocoons. The chrysaHs is dark brown, and 
rough with elevated points. The moths begin to come out of 
the ground as soon as the twenty-fifth of June, and others con- 
tinue to appear till the twentieth of July. Though of small size, 
they are very beautiful, and far surpass all others of the family in 
delicacy of coloring and design. The name of this moth is Eu- 
dryas grata *, the first word signifying beautiful wood nymph, and 
the second agreeable or pleasing. The antennae are rather long, 
almost thread-like, tapering to the end, and not feathered in 
either sex. The fore-wings are pure white, with a broad stripe 
along the front edge, extending from the shoulder a little beyond 
the middle of the edge, and a broad band around the outer hind 
margin, of a deep purple-brown color ; the band is edged internal- 
ly with olive-green, and marked towards the edge with a slender 
wavy white line ; near the middle of the wing, and touching the 
brown stripe, are two brown spots, one of them round and the 
other kidney-shaped ; and on the middle of the inner margin 
there is a large triangular olive-colored spot ; the under-side of 
the same wings is yellow, and near the middle there are a round 
and a kidney-shaped black spot. The hind-wings are yellow above 
and beneath ; on the upper side with a broad purple-brown hind 
border on which there is a wavy white line, and on the under-side 
with only a central black dot. The head is black. Along the 
middle of the thorax there is a broad crest-like stripe of black and 
pearl-colored glittering scales. The shoulder-covers are white. 
The upper side of the abdomen is yellow, with a row of black 
spots on the top, and another on each side ; the under-side ( f the 
body, and the large mufF-like tufts on the fore-legs, are white ; and 
the other legs are black. This moth rests with its wings closed 
like a steep roof over its back, and its fore-legs stretched for- 
wards, like a Cerura. It expands from one inch and a half to 
one inch and three quarters. 

Eudryas unio, of Hiibner, the pearl Eudryas, as its name im- 
plies, is a somewhat smaller moth, closely resembling the pre- 
ceding, from which it differs in having the stripe and band on its 



This insect is tiie Bombyx grata of Fabricius. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 311 

fore-wings of a brighter purple-brown color, the round and kidney- 
shaped spots contiguous to the former also brown, the olive-col- 
ored edging of the band wavy, with a powdered blue spot between 
it and the triangular olive-colored spot on the inner margin, and a 
distinct brown spot on the inner hind angle of the posterior 
wings ; all the wings beneath are broadly bordered behind with 
light brown, and the spots upon them are also light brown. It 
expands from one inch and three eighths to one inch and a half. 
This species has been taken in Massachusetts, but it is rare, and 
the caterpillar is unknown to me. 

In the remarks preceding the description of Notodonta concin- 
na, mention was made of two kinds of caterpillars, living in great 
numbers on fruit-trees in the latter part of summer. The sec- 
ond kind are now to be described. They grow to a greater size, 
are longer in coming to their growth, their swarms are more nu- 
merous, and consequently they do much more injury than the 
red-humped kind. Entire branches of the apple-trees are fre- 
quently stripped of their leaves by them, and are loaded with 
these caterpillars in thickly crowded swarms. The eggs from 
which they are hatched will be found in patches, of about a hun- 
dred together, fastened to the under-side of leaves near the ends 
of the twigs. Some of them begin to be hatched about the twen- 
tieth of July, and new broods make their appearance in succes- 
sion for the space of a month or more. At first they eat only 
the under-side and pulpy part of the leaves, leaving the upper side 
and veins untouched ; but afterwards they consume the whole of 
the leaves except their stems. These caterpillars are sparingly 
covered with soft whitish hairs ; the young ones are brown, and 
striped with white ; but, as they grow older, their colors become 
darker every time they cast their skins. They come to their full 
size in about five weeks or a little more, and then measure from 
an inch and three quarters to two inches and a quarter in extent. 
The head is large, and of a black color ; the body is nearly 
cylindrical, with a spot on the top of the first ring and the legs 
dull orange-yellow, a black stripe along the top of the back, and 
three of the same color alternating with four yellow stripes on 
each side. The posture of these caterpillars, when at rest, is 
very odd ; both extremities are raised, the body being bent, and 



312 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

resting only on the four intermediate pairs of legs. If touched 
or otherwise disturbed, they throw up their heads and tails with a 
jerk, at the same time bending the body semicircularly till the 
two extremities almost meet over the back. They all eat togeth- 
er, and, after they have done, arrange themselves side by side 
along the twigs and branches which they have stripped. Begin- 
ning at the ends of the branches they eat all the leaves succes- 
sively from thence towards the trunk, and if one branch does not 
afford food enough they betake themselves to another. When 
ready to transform, all the individuals of the same brood quit the 
tree at once, descending by night, and burrow into the ground to 
the depth of three or four inches, and, within twenty-four hours 
afterwards, cast their caterpillar-skins, and become chrysalids 
without making cocoons. They remain in the ground in this 
state all winter, and are changed to moths and come out between 
the middle and end of July. These moths belong to the genus 
Pygcera, so named because the caterpillar sits with its tail raised 
up. The antennae are rather long, those of the males fringed 
beneath, in a double row, with very short hairs nearly to the tips, 
which, however, as well as the whole of the stalk of the antennae 
in the other sex, are bare ; the thorax is generally marked with 
a large dark-colored spot, the hairs of which can be raised up so 
as to form a ridge or kind of crest ; the hinder margin of the 
fore-wings is slightly notched ; and the fore-legs are stretched out 
before the body in repose. Our Pygctra was named, by Drury, 
minisira, the attendant or servant. It is of a light brown color ; 
the head and a large square spot on the thorax are dark chestnut- 
brown ; on the fore-wings are four or five transverse lines, one 
or two spots near the middle, and a short oblique line near the tip, 
all of which, with the outer hind margin, are dark chestnut-brown. 
One and sometimes both of the dark brown spots are wanting on 
the fore-wings in the males, and the females, which are larger 
than the other sex, frequently have five instead of four transverse 
brown lines. It expands from one inch and three quarters to 
two inches and a half. 

I have seen on the oak, the birch, the black walnut, and the 
hickory trees, swarms of caterpillars slightly differing in color 
from each other and from those, above described, that live on the 



LEPIDOPTERA. 313 

apple and cherry trees ; they were more hairy than the latter, 
but their postures and habits appeared to be the same. Wheth- 
er they were all different species, or only varieties of the minis- 
tra, arising from difference of food, I have not been able to as- 
certain. Mr. Abbot * found the caterpillars of the ministra on a 
species of Andromeda. He says that they also eat the leaves of 
several kinds of walnut and oak ; that those which eat walnut 
leaves are always black, with white hairs ; and when their food is 
of the oak that they are more yellow ; but that he had not ob- 
served any material difference in the moths. 

The cultivation of the balsam and our other large-leaved native 
poplars seems to have been neglected of late years. It is true 
that these trees are not so durable and so valuable as many oth- 
ers ; but we sometimes meet with noble specimens of them ; and 
the rapidity of their growth, the great size they attain in favorable 
situations, and the fine shade they afford, are qualities not to be 
overlooked or despised ; nor is the wood entirely worthless, either 
as fuel or in the arts. If these trees are planted alternately with 
other more slow-growing trees, we shall have the benefit of the 
shade and shelter of the former till the others have become large 
enough to fill their places. They are not subject to be attacked 
by canker-worms, oak-caterpillars, web-worms, and many other 
kinds of insects that infest our hard-wood, ornamental, and shade 
trees ; but, unfortunately, they suffer too often from insect depre- 
dators of their own, such as the grubs of two or three kinds of 
beetles, which bore into their trunks ; the spiny caterpillars of 
the Antiopa butterfly and of the lo moth, the f jik-tailed Cerura, 
the caterpillar of the herald-moth, and another kind of caterpillar 
now to be described, all which devour the leaves of these trees. 
This last kind of caterpillar is found in little swarms on the trees 
from the last of July to the beginning of October. It does not 
raise the hinder part of its body when at rest. It is nearly cy- 
lindrical, with two little black warts close together on the top of 
the fourth and of the eleventh rings. There are a few short 
whitish hairs thinly scattered over the body, which is pale yellow, 
with three slender black lines on the back, and a broad dusky 

* See " Insects of Georgia," p. 161, pi. 81. 

40 



314 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

stripe, also marked with three black lines, on each side ; and the 
head, fore-legs, and spiracles are black. When fully grown, 
these caterpillars measure about an inch and a half in length. 
They live together, in swarms of twenty or more individuals, in 
a nest made of a single leaf folded or curled at the sides, and 
lined with a thin web of silk. An opening is left at each end of 
the nest ; through the lower one the dirt made by the insects falls, 
and through the upper one, which is next to the leaf-stalk, the 
caterpillars go out to feed upon the leaves near to their nests. 
When young they sometimes fold up one side of a leaf for a nest, 
and eat the other half. The stalks of the leaves, to which their 
nests are hung, become covered with silk from the threads carried 
along by the caterpillars in going over them ; and these threads 
help to secure the nests to the branches. They eat all parts of 
the leaves except the stalks and larger veins, and frequently strip 
long shoots of their foliage in a very few days. Towards the end 
of September or early in October, according to the age of the 
different broods, they descend from the trees, disperse, and seek 
a shelter in crevices or under leaves and rubbish on the ground, 
where they make their cocoons. These are tliin irregular silken 
webs, so loosely spun that the insects can be seen through them ; 
but they are protected by their situation, or by the dead leaves and 
other matters under which they are made. As soon as the 
cocoons are finished, the insects become chrysalids, and remain 
quiet through the winter ; and about the middle of June, or 
somewhat later, they are transformed to moths. They belong to 
the genus Clostera, or spinner, so named on account of the 
spinning habits of the caterpillars. The antennas are narrowly 
feathered or pectinated in both sexes ; the thorax has an elevated 
crest in the middle ; the tail is tufted and turned up at the end, in 
the males ; the fore-legs are thickly covered with hairs to the 
end, and are stretched out before the body when the insect is at 
rest. Our poplar spinner may be called Clostera Jlmericana^ 
the American Clostera. It closely resembles the European ana- 
stomosis, from which, however, it differs essentially in its cater- 
pillar state, and the moth presents certain characters, which, on 
close comparison with the European insect, will enable us to dis- 
tinguish it from the latter. It is of a brownish gray color ; the 



LEPIDOPTERA. 315 

fore-wings are faintly tinged with pale lilac, and more or less 
clouded with rust-red ; they have an irregular row of blackish 
dots near the outer hind margin, and are crossed by three whitish 
lines, of which the first nearest the shoulders is broken and widely 
separated in the middle, the second divides into two branches, 
one of which goes straight across the wing to the inner margin, 
and the other passes obliquely till it meets the end of the third line, 
with which it forms an angle or letter V ; across the middle of 
the hind-wings there is a narrow brownish band, much more dis- 
tinct beneath than above ; on the top of the thorax there is an 
oblong chestnut-colored spot, the hairs of which rise upwards 
behind and form a crest. All the whitish lines on the fore-wings 
are more or less bounded externally with rust-red. It expands 
from one inch and one quarter to one inch and five eighths. In 
Georgia this insect breeds twice a year ; and the caterpillars eat 
the leaves of the willow as well as those of the poplar*. 

2. Owlet-moths. (JVbcfwcB.) 

Our second tribe of moths, the Nocture of Linnaeus, appears 
to have been thus named from J^octua, an owl, because they fly 
chiefly by night, and are hence called eulen, or owl-moths by the 
Germans. This tribe contains a very large number of thick- 
bodied and swift-flying moths, most of which may be distinguish- 
ed by the following characters. The antennae are long and taper- 
ing, and seldom pectinated even in the males ; the tongue is long ; 
the feelers are very distinct, and project more or less beyond the 
face, the two lower joints being compressed or flattened at the 
sides, and the last joint is slender and small ; the thorax is thick, 
with rather prominent collar and shoulders, and is often crested on 
the top ; the body tapers behind ; the wings are always fastened 
together by bristles and hooks, are generally roofed, when at rest, 
and each of the fore-wings is marked behind the middle of the 
front margin with two spots, one of them round and small, and 
the other larger and kidney-shaped. A few of them fly by day, 
the others only at night. Their colors are generally dull, and of 

* See Phalmna anaslumosis of Smith, in Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 
143, pi. 72. 



316 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

some shade of gray or brown, and so extremely alike are they in 
their markings, that it is very difficult to describe them without 
the aid of figures, which cannot be expected in this treatise. The 
caterpillars are nearly cylindrical, for the most part naked, though 
some are hairy, slow in their motions, and generally provided with 
sixteen legs ; those with fewer legs never want the hindmost pair, 
and never raise the end of the body when at rest. Some of them 
make cocoons, but the rest go into the ground to transform. 
Many of the Noctuas vary more or less from the characters above 
given, and the tribe seems to admit of being divided into several 
smaller groups or families, under which their peculiarities might 
be more distinctly pointed out. Unfortunately the history of 
most of our moths is still imperfectly known to me ; and, for this 
reason, as well as on account of the length to which the forego- 
ing part of this treatise has already extended, I have concluded to 
suppress a considerable portion of my observations on the owlet- 
moths and the rest of the Lepidoptera, and shall confine my re- 
marks to a few of the most injurious species in each of the re- 
maining tribes. 

The injury done to vegetation by the caterpillars of the Noctu- 
as, or owlet-moths, is by no means inconsiderable, and sometimes 
becomes very great and apparent ; but most of these insects are 
concealed from our observation during the day-time, and come 
out from their retreats to feed only at night. To turn them out of 
their hiding-places becomes sometimes absolutely necessary, and it 
is only by dear-bought experience that we learn how to discover 
them. This is not the case with all ; those of the first family, 
which I would call Acronyctians (Acronyctad^*), live exposed 
on the leaves of trees and shrubs. They have sixteen legs, are cy- 
lindrical, and more or less hairy, some of them closely resembling 
those of the genus Clostera^ having a wart or prominence on the 
top of the fourth and the eleventh rings, and some of them have 
the hair in tufts like Arctians and Liparians. They make tough 
silken cocoons, in texture almost like stiff brown paper, into 
which they weave the hairs of their bodies. Their moths have 

* From Acronycta, a genus of moths appearing at night-fall, as the name im- 
plies. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 317 

bristle-formed antennae, and the thorax is not crested. Their 
fore-wings are generally light gray with dark spots, and in many 
are marked with a character resembling the Greek letter ip near 
the inner hind angle. Of those that want this character on the 
fore-wings, the largest American species, known to me, may be 
called Jipatela Jlmericana^ which has been mistaken* for Apatela 
Jlceris, the maple-moth of Europe. Its body and fore-wings are 
light gray ; on the latter there is a wavy, scalloped white line 
edged externally with black near the outer hind margin, and the 
usual round and kidney-shaped spots are also edged with black ; 
the hind-wings are dark gray in the male, blackish in the female, 
with a faintly marked black curved band and central semicircular 
spot ; all the wings are whitish and shining beneath, with a black 
wavy and curved band and central semicircular spot on each ; the 
fringes are white, scalloped, and spotted with black. It expands 
from two inches and a quarter to two inches and a half, or more. 
This kind of moth flies only at night, and makes its appearance 
between the middle and the end of July. The caterpillar eats 
the leaves of the various kinds of maple, and sometimes also those 
of the elm and chestnut. It is one of the largest kinds ; and, early 
in October, when it arrives at maturity, measures from one inch 
and three quarters to two inches or more in length. It is of a 
greenish yellow color above, with the head, tail, belly, and feet, 
black ; its body is covered with long and soft yellow hairs, grow- 
ing immediately from the skin ; on the top of the fourth ring there 
are two long, slender, and erect tufts of black hairs, two more 
on the sixth ring, and a single pencil on the eleventh ring.f 
When about to make its cocoon it creeps into chinks of the bark, 
or into cracks in fences, and spins a loose, half-oval web of silk. 



* See Phalana Aceris, Smith, in Abbot's " Insects of Georgia," p. 185, pi. 93. 

t Those naturalists, who are familiar with the appearance of the European 
caterpillar of Jlpatela Aceris, will perceive the great and essential difference be- 
tween it and that of our American Apatcla, which bears abotrt as much resem- 
blance to the former as does that of Astasia torrefacta, of Sir J. E. Smith an 
insect apparently belonging to the Notodontians, and near to Clostcra and Pi/g(£ra. 
Apatela signifies deceptive ; and this name was probably given to the frenus be- 
cause the caterpillars appear in the dress of Arctians and Lipaiians, but produce 
true owlet-moths or Noctuas. 



318 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

intermixed with the hairs of its body ; under this it then makes 
another and tougher pod of silk, thickened with fragments of bark 
and wood, and, when its work is done, changes to a chrysahs, in 
which state it remains till the following summer. 

The caterpillars of the Nonagrians (Nonagriad^*) are 
naked, long, slender and tapering at each end, smooth, and gen- 
erally of a faint reddish or greenish tint, with an oval, dark color- 
ed, horny spotf on the top of the first and last ring. Most of 
them live within the stems of reeds, flags, and other water-plants ; 
some in the stems, and even in the roots of plants remote from the 
water. They devour the pith and the inside of the roots, and 
transform in the same situations, having previously gnawed a hole 
from the inside of their retreat, through the side of the stem or 
root to the outside skin, which is left untouched, and which the 
moth can easily break through afterwards. The chrysalids are 
generally very long and cylindrical, and are blunt at the extremi- 
ties. Most of the moths have very long bodies, a smooth thorax, 
and are of a yellowish clay or drab color ; the fore-wings want 
the usual spots, are faintly streaked and dotted with black, and 
have a scalloped hind margin. Those that do not live in water 
plants are distinguished by brighter colors of orange yellow and 
brown, with the usual spots more or less distinct on the fore- 
wings, the margin of which is wavy ; the collar is prominent, and 
the thorax crested. In all of them the antennae of the males are 
slightly thickened with short hairs beneath. 

These insects are fatal to the plants attacked, the greater part 
of which, however, are without value to the farmer. Indian corn 
must be excepted ; for it often suffers severely from the depreda- 
tions of one of these Nonagrians, known to our farmers by the 
name of the spindle-worm. The Rev. L. W. Leonard has favored 
me with a specimen of this insect, its chrysalis, and its moth, 
together with some remarks upon its habits ; and the latter have 
also been described to me by an intelligent friend conversant with 
agriculture. This insect receives its common name from its de- 

* From J^onagri.a, the meaning of which is uncertain. 

t These dark liorny spots are found on the first ring of most of the caterpillars 
that burrow in the stems of plants, or in the ground. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 319 

stroying the spindle of the Indian corn ; but its ravages generally 
begin while the corn-stalk is young, and before the spindle rises 
much above the tuft of leaves in which it is embosomed. The 
mischief is discovered by the withering of the leaves, and, when 
these are taken hold of, they may often be drawn out with the 
included spindle. On examining the corn, a small hole may be 
seen in the side of the leafy stalk, near the ground, penetrating 
into the soft centre of the stalk, which, when cut open, will be 
found to be perforated, both upwards and downwards, by a slen- 
der worm-like caterpillar, whose excrementitious castings sur- 
round the orifice of the hole. This caterpillar grows to the 
length of an inch, or more, and to the thickness of a goose-quill. It 
is smooth, and apparently naked, yellowish, with the head, the 
top of the first and of the last rings black, and with a band across 
each of the other rings, consisting of small, smooth, slightly ele- 
vated, shining black dots, arranged in a double row. With a 
magnifying glass a few short hairs can be seen on its body, arising 
singly from the black dots. This mischievous caterpillar is not 
confined to Indian corn, it attacks also the stems of the Dahlia, 
as I am informed, both by Mr. Leonard, and by the Rev. J. L. 
Russell, both of whom have observed its ravages in the stems of 
this favorite flower. The chrysalis, which is lodged in the burrow 
formed by the spindle-worm, is slender, but not quite so long in 
proportion to its thickness as are those of most of the Nonagrians. 
It is shining mahogany-brown, with the anterior edges of four of 
the rings of the back roughened with little points, and four short 
spines or hooks, turned upwards, on the hinder extremity of the 
body. The moth produced from this insect differs from the 
other Nonagrians somewhat in form, its fore-wings being shorter, 
and more rounded at the tip. It may be called Gorlyna* Zea, 
the corn Gortyna ; Ztia being the botanical name of Indian corn. 
The fore-wings are rust-red ; they are mottled with gray, almost 
in bands, uniting with the ordinary spots, which are also gray and 
indistinct ; there is an irregular tawny spot near the tip, and on 
the veins there are a few black dots. The hind-wings are yel- 



* Gortjna, in ancient geography, was the name of a city in Crete, so called 
from its founder. 



320 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

lovvish gray, with a central dusky spot, behind which are two 
faint, dusky bands. The head and thorax are rust-red, with an 
elevated tawny tuft on each. The abdomen is pale brown, with 
a row of tawny tufts on the back. The wings expand nearly one 
inch and a half. 

In order to check the ravages of these insects they must be de- 
stroyed while in the caterpillar state. As soon as our corn-fields 
begin to show, by the withering of the leaves, the usual signs that 
the enemy is at work in the stalks, the spindle-worms should be 
sought for and killed ; for, if allowed to remain undisturbed until 
they turn to moths, they will make their escape, and we shall not 
be able to prevent them from laying their eggs for another brood 
of these pestilent insects. 

The roots of the Columbine are attacked by another caterpilkr 
belonging to this family. It burrows into the bottom of the 
stalk and devours the inside of the roots, which it injures so much 
that the plant soon dies. One of these caterpillars, which was 
found in July, in the roots of a fine double Columbine in my gar- 
den, was of a whitish color, with a few black dots on each of the 
rings, a brownish head, and the top of the first and of the last 
rings blackish. It grew to the length of about one inch and a 
quarter, turned to a chrysalis on the nineteenth of August, and 
came out a moth on the twenty-fourth of September. The moth 
closely resembles the Gortyna fiavago of Europe, but is suf- 
ficiently distinct from it. It may be called Gortyna leucostigma, 
the white-spot Gortyna. The fore-wings are tawny yellow, 
sprinkled with purple-brown dots, and with two broad bands and 
the outer hind margin purple-brown ; there is a distinct tawny 
yellow spot on the tip, followed by a row of faint yellowish cres- 
cents between the brown band and margin ; the ordinary spots are 
yellow, margined with brown, and there is a third oval spot of a 
white color near the round spot. The hind-wings are pale buff 
or yellowish white, with a central spot, and a band behind it, of a 
brownish color. The head is brown ; the thorax is tawny yellow, 
with a brown tuft ; and the edges of the collar, and of the shoulder- 
covers are brown. The wings expand rather more than one inch 
and a half. I have what appear to be varieties of this moth, ex- 



LEPIDOPTERA. 321 

panding one inch and three eighths, with three or four white dots 
around the kidney-spot, and the ordinary round spot wholly 
white. 

Numerous complaints have been made of the ravages of cut- 
worms among corn, wheat, grass, and other vegetables, in various 
parts of the country. After a tiresome search through many of 
our agricultural publications, I have become convinced that these 
insects and their history are not yet known to some of the very 
persons who are said to have suffered from their depredations. 
Various cut-worms, or more properly subterranean caterpillars, 
wire-worms or luli, and grub-worms, or the young of May- 
beetles, are often confounded together or mistaken for each other ; 
sometimes their names are interchanged, and sometimes the same 
name is given to each and all of these different animals. Hence 
the remedies that are successful in some instances are entirely 
useless in others. The name of cut-worm seems originally to 
have been given to certain caterpillars that live in the ground 
about the roots of plants, but come up in the night, and cut off 
and devour the tender stems and lower leaves of young cabbages, 
beans, corn, and other herbaceous plants. These subterranean 
caterpillars are finally transformed to moths belonging to a group 
which may be called Agrotidians (AcROTiDiDiE), from a word 
signifying rustic, or pertaining to the fields. Some of these rustic 
moths fly by day, and may be found in the fields, especially in the 
autumn, sucking the honey of flowers ; others are on the wing 
only at night, and during the day lie concealed in chinks of walls 
and other dark places. Their wings are nearly horizontal when 
closed, the upper pair completely covering the lower wings, and 
often overlapping a little on their inner edges, thus favoring these 
insects in their attempts to obtain shelter and concealment. The 
thorax is slightly convex, -but smooth or not crested. The an- 
tennae of the males are generally beset with two rows of short 
points, like fine teeth, on the under-side, nearly to the tips. The 
fore-legs are often quite spiny. Most of these moths come forth 
in July and August, and soon afterwards lay their eggs in the 
ground, in ploughed fields, gardens, and meadows. In Europe it 
is found that the eggs are hatched early in the autumn, at which 
time the little subterranean caterpillars live chiefly on the roots 
41 



322 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and tender sprouts of herbaceous plants. On the approach of 
winter they descend deeper into the ground, and, curhng them- 
selves up, remain in a torpid state till the following spring, when 
they ascend towards the surface, and renew their devastations. 
The caterpillars of the Agrotidians are smooth, shining, naked, 
and dark-colored, with longitudinal pale and blackish stripes, and 
a few black dots on each ring ; some of them also have a shining, 
horny, black spot on the top of the first ring. They are of a 
cylindrical form, tapering a little at each end, rather thick in pro- 
portion to their length, and are provided with sixteen legs. They 
are changed to chrysalids in the ground, without previously mak- 
ing silken cocoons. The most destructive kinds in Europe are 
the caterpillars of the corn rustic or winter dart-moth [Agrotis 
segetum), the wheat dart-moth [Agrotis tritici), the eagle-moth 
(Agrotis aquilina), and the turf rustic or antler-moth [Charceas gra- 
minis)*. The first two attack both the roots and leaves of winter 
wheat ; the second also destroys buck-wheat ; and it is stated that 
sixty bushels of mould, taken from a field where they prevailed, 
contained twenty-three bushels of the caterpillars ; those of the 
eagle-moth occasionally prove very destructive in vineyards ; and 
the caterpillars of the antler-moth are notorious for their devasta- 
tions in meadows, and particularly in mountain pastures. 

The habits of our cut-worms appear to be exactly the same as 
those of the European Agrotidians. It is chiefly during the 
months of June and July that they are found to be most destruc- 
tive. Whole corn-fields are sometimes laid waste by them. 
Cabbage-plants, till they are grown to a considerable size, are 
very apt to be cut off and destroyed by them. Potato-vines, 
beans, beets, and various other culinary plants suffer in the same 
way. The products of our flower-gardens are not spared ; asters, 
balsams, pinks, and many other kinds of flowers are often shorn 
of their leaves and of their central buds, by these concealed 
spoilers. Several years ago I procured a considerable number of 
cut- worms in the months of June and July. Some of them were 
dug up among cabbage-plants, some from potato-hills, and others 
from the corn-field and the flower-garden. Though varying in 

* See " Kollar's Treatise," p. 94, 102, 1C6, and 136. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 323 

length from one inch and a quarter to two inches, they were fully 
grown, and buried themselves immediately in the earth with which 
they were supplied. They were all thick, greasy-looking cater- 
pillars, of a dark ashen gray color ; but I neglected at first to ex- 
amine them carefully in order to see if they were marked exactly 
alike. Some of the last found were observed to have one or two 
blackish stripes on each side of the body, and a pale stripe on the 
back, with four little black dots on each ring. The head was 
also blackish. They were soon changed to chrysalids, of a 
shining mahogany-brown color ; and between the twentieth of 
July and the fifteenth of August they came out of the ground in 
the moth state. Much to my surprise, however, these cut-worms 
produced five different species of moths ; and, when it was too 
late, 1 regretted that they had not been more carefully examined, 
and compared together before their transformation. 

The largest of these moths may be called ^gratis telifera, the 
lance-rustic. It closely resembles Jlgrotis suffusa, the dark 
sword-rustic of Europe. The fore-wings are light brown, shaded 
with dark brown along the outer thick edge, and in the middle 
also in the female ; these wings are divided into three nearly 
equal parts by two transverse bands, each composed of two wavy 
dark brown lines ; in the middle space are situated the two ordi- 
nary spots, together with a third oval spot, which touches the an- 
terior band ; these spots are encircled with dark brown, and the 
kidney-spot bears a dark brown lance-shaped mark on its hinder 
part ; the hindmost third of the wing is crossed by a broad pale 
band, and is ornamented by a narrow wavy or festooned line, and 
several small blackish spots near the margin. The hind-wings are 
pearly white, and semitransparent, shaded behind, and veined 
with dusky brown. The thorax is brown or gray-brown, with 
the edge of the collar blackish. The abdomen is gray. The 
wings expand two inches or more. 

Another of these moths is the counterpart of the mqua and 
agricola of Europe. It also resembles the telifera in form, but is 
destitute of the lance-shaped spot on the fore-wings ; and hence I 
have named it Jlgrotis inennis, the unarmed rustic moth. The 
fore-wing§ are light brown, shaded in the middle and towards the 
hinder margin with dusky brown ; they are crossed by four, more 



324 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

or less distinct, wavy bands, each formed of two blackish lines ; 
the kidney-spot is dusky ; and there are several blackish spots on 
the outer thick edge of the wing. The hind-wings are pearly 
white in the middle, shaded behind and veined with dusky 
brown. The thorax is reddish brown, with the collar and 
shoulder covers doubly edged with black. The abdomen is gray. 
It expands two inches. 

The reaping rustic [Agrotis messoi'ia), as it may be called, is 
the representative of the corn-rustic {Agrotis segetum) of Europe. 
The fore-wings are reddish gray, crossed by five wavy blackish 
bands, the first two of which, and generally the fourth also, are 
double ; the two ordinary spots, and a third oval spot near the 
middle of the wing, are bordered with black. The hind-wings 
are whitish, becoming dusky brown behind, and have a small cen- 
tral crescent and the veins dusky. The head and thorax are 
chinchilla-gray ; the collar is edged with black ; and the abdomen 
is light brownish gray. It expands one inch and four tenths. 

The smallest of these rustic moths may be called Jigrotis tessel- 
lata, the checkered rustic. It probably comes near to the ocel- 
lina and aquilina of Europe, which, however, I have not seen. 
The fore-wings are dark ash-colored, and exhibit only a faint 
trace of the transverse double wavy bands ; the two ordinary 
spots are large and pale, and alternate with a triangular and a 
square deep black spot ; there is a smaller black spot near the 
base of the wing. The hind-wings are brownish gray in the mid- 
dle, and blackish behind. It expands one inch and one quarter. 

The fifth species I am assured by one of my friends is the moth 
of the cabbage cut-worm. It agrees, in the main, with the de- 
scription given of the Phalcena Noctua devastator^ by Mr. John 
P. Brace, in the first volume of Professor Silliman's " American 
Journal of Science ;" and may therefore be called Jigrotis devasta- 
tor. It somewhat resembles Dr. Boisduval's figures of the Jigro- 
tis latens of Europe. The fore-wings are of a dark ashen gray 
color, with a lustre like satin ; they are crossed by four narrow 
wavy whitish bands, which are edged on each side with black ; 
there is a transverse row of white dots followed by a row of black, 
arrow-shaped spots, between the third and fourth bands, and three 
white dots on the outer edge near the tip ; the ordinary spots are 



LEPIDOPTERA. 325 

edged with black and white, and there is a third spot, of an oval 
shape and blackish color, near the middle of the wing, and touch- 
ing the second band. The hind-wings are light brownish gray, 
almost of a dirty white in the middle, and dusky behind. The 
head and thorax are chinchilla-gray ; and the abdomen is colored 
like the hind-wings. It expands from one inch and five eighths 
to one inch and three quarters. This kind of moth is very com- 
mon between the tenth of July and the middle of August. Like 
all the foregoing species, it flies only at night. According to Mr. 
Brace, this moth lays its eggs in the beginning of autumn, at the 
roots of trees, and near the ground ; the eggs are hatched early 
in May ; the cut-worms continue their depredations about four 
weeks, then cast their skin and become pupae or chrysalids in the 
earth, a few inches below the surface of the ground ; the pupa 
state lasts four weeks, and the moth comes out about the middle 
of July ; it conceals itself in the crevices of buildings and beneath 
the bark of trees, and is never seen during the day ; about sun- 
set it leaves its hiding-place, is constantly on the wing, is very 
troublesome about the candles in houses, flies rapidly, and is not 
easily taken.* From what is known respecting the history of the 
other kinds of Jigrotis, and from the size that the cabbage cut- 
worms are found to have attained in May, I am led to infer that 
they must generally be hatched in the previous autumn, and that, 
after feeding awhile on such food as they can find immediately 
under the surface of the soil, they descend deeper into the ground 
and remain curled up, in little cavities which each one makes for 
itself in the earth, till the following spring. 

Dr. F. E. Melsheimer, of Dover, Pennsylvania, has favored 
me with the wing of a moth, which he states is produced from 
the corn cut-worm. The following remarks on this insect are 
extracted from his letters." " There are several species o^ Agro- 
tis, the larvae of which are injurious to culinary plants ; but the 
chief culprit with us is the same as that which is destructive to 
young maize." " The corn cut-worms make their appearance in 
great numbers at irregular periods, and confine themselves in their 
devastations to no particular vegetables, all that are succulent 

* " American Journal of Science," Vol. I., p. 154. 



326 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

being relished by these indiscriminate devourers : but, if their 
choice is not hmited, they prefer maize plants when not more than 
a few inches above the earth, early sown buckwheat, young 
pumpkin-plants, young beans, cabbage-plants, and many other 
field and garden vegetables." " When first disclosed from the 
eggs they subsist on the various grasses. They descend in the 
ground on the approach of severe frosts, and reappear in the 
spring about half grown. They seek their food in the night or 
in cloudy weather, and retire before sunrise into the ground, or 
beneath stones or any substance which can shelter them from the 
rays of the sun ; here they remain coiled up during the day, ex- 
cept while devouring the food which they generally drag into their 
places of concealment. Their transformation to pupae occurs at 
different periods, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, according to 
the forwardness of the season, but usually not much later than the 
middle of July." " The moths, as well as the larvae, vary much 
in the depth of their color, from a pale ash to a deep or obscure 
brown. The ordinary spots of the upper wings of the moth are 
always connected by a blackish line ; where the color is of the 
deepest shade these spots are scarcely visible, but when the color 
is lighter they are very obvious." This moth is very abundant in 
the New England States, from the middle of June till the middle 
or end of August. The fore-wings are generally of a dark ash- 
color, with only a very faint trace of the double transverse wavy 
bands that are found in most species of Agrotis ; the two ordi- 
nary spots are small and narrow, the anterior spot being oblong 
oval, and connected with the oblique kidney-shaped spot, by a 
longitudinal black line. The hind-wings are dirty brownish white, 
somewhat darker behind. The head, the collar, and the abdo- 
men are chestnut-colored. It expands one inch and three quar- 
ters. The wings, when shut, overlap on their inner edges, and 
cover the top of the back so flatly and closely that these moths 
can get into very narrow crevices. During the day they lie hid- 
den under the bark of trees, in the chinks of fences, and even 
under the loose clapboards of buildings. When the blinds of our 
houses are opened in the morning, a little swarm of these insects, 
which had crept behind them for concealment, is sometimes ex- 
posed, and suddenly aroused from their daily slumber. This 



LEPIDOPTERA. 327 

kind of moth has the form and general appearance of some species 
of Pyrophila, but not the essential characters of the genus. It 
differs also from Agrotis and Graphi'phora in some respects, and 
therefore I have thought it best to leave it, for the present, in the 
old genus Noctua, under the specific name of clandestinely the 
clandestine owlet-moth. 

Among the various remedies that have been proposed for pre- 
venting the ravages of cut-worms in wheat and corn-fields, may 
be mentioned the soaking of the grain, before planting, in copperas- 
water and other solutions supposed to be disagreeable to the in- 
sects ; rolling the seed in lime or ashes ; and mixing salt with the 
manure. These may prevent wire-worms (Tuli) and some in- 
sects from destroying the seed ; but cut-worms prey only on the 
sprouts and young stalks, and do not eat the seeds. Such stimu- 
lating applications may be of some benefit, by promoting a more 
rapid and vigorous growth of the grain, by which means the 
sprouts will the sooner become so strong and rank as to resist or 
escape the attacks of the young cut-worms. Fall-ploughing of 
sward-lands, which are intended to be sown with wheat or planted 
with corn the year following, will turn up and expose the insects 
to the inclemency of winter, whereby many of them will be killed, 
and will also bring them within reach of insect-eating birds. But 
this seems to be a doubtful remedy, against which many objections 
have been urged.* The only effectual remedy at present known, 
has been humorously described by Mr. Asahel Foote in the 
" Albany Cultivator", and reprinted in the seventeenth volume of 
the " New England Farmer". After having lost more than a 
tenth part of the corn in his field, he " ordered his men to pre- 
pare for war, to sharpen their finger ends, and set at once about 
exhuming the marauders. For several days it seemed as if a 
whole procession came to each one's funeral, but at length victory 
wreathed the brow of perseverance ; and, the precaution having 
been taken to replace each foe dislodged with a suitable quantity 
of good seed-corn, he soon had the pleasure to see his field 
restored, in a good measure, to its original order and beauty, 
there being seldom a vacancy in a piece of four acres." Mr. 

* See Mr. Colman's " Third Report of the Agriculture of Massachusetts," p. G2. 



328 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Foote's statement, founded on an estimate of the time employed 
in digging up and killing the cut- worms, and the increased produce 
of the field, is conclusive in favor of this mode of checking the 
ravages of these insects. 

Mr. Deane states that he " once prevented the depredations of 
cut-w^orms in his garden by manuring the soil with sea-mud. The 
plants generally escaped, though every one was cut ofi' in a spot 
of ground contiguous." He acknowledges, however, that " the 
most effectual, and not a laborious remedy, even in field-culture, 
is to go round every morning, and open the earth at the foot of 
the plant, and you will never fail to find the worm at the root, 
within four inches. Kill him, and you will save not only the 
other plants of your field, but, probably, many thousands in future 
years." Mr. Preston of Stockport, Pennsylvania, protected his 
cabbage-plants from cut-worms by wrapping a walnut or hickory 
leaf around the stem, between the root and leaves, before planting 
it in the ground. The late Honorable Ohver Fiske, of Worcester, 
Massachusetts, says, that " to search out the spoiler, and kill him, 
is the very best course ; but, as his existence is not known except 
by his ravages, I make a fortress for my cabbage-plants with 
paper, winding it conically and firmly above the root, and securing 
it by a low embankment of earth." 

There is another naked caterpillar which is often found to be 
injurious to cabbages, cauliflowers, spinach, beets, and other gar- 
den vegetables with succulent leaves. It does not conceal itself 
in the ground, but hves exposed on the leaves of the plants which 
it devours. It is of a fight yellow color, with three, broad, lon- 
gitudinal, yellow stripes, one on each side and the third on the top 
of the back ; and the head and feet are tawny. Dr. Melsheimer 
calls it the zebra-caterpillar, on account of its stripes. It comes 
to its full size here in September, and then measures about two 
inches in length. Early in October it leaves off eating, goes into 
the ground, changes to a shining brown chrysalis, and is trans- 
formed to a moth about the first of June. It is probable that 
there are two broods of this kind of caterpillar every summer, in 
some, if not all parts of this country ; for Dr. Melsheimer in- 
forms me that it appears in Pennsylvania in June, goes into the 
ground and is changed to a chrysalis towards the end of June or 



LEPIDOPTERA. 329 

the beginning of July, and comes forth in the moth state near the 
end of August. The moth may be called Mamestra picta, the 
painted Mamestra, in allusion both to the beautiful tints of the 
caterpillar, and to the softly blended shades of dark and light 
brown with which the fore-wings of the moth are colored. It is 
of a light brown color, shaded with purple brown ; the ordinary 
spots on the fore-wings, wijh a third oval spot behind the round 
one, are edged with gray ; and there is a transverse zigzag gray 
line, forming a distinct W in the middle, near the outer hind mar- 
gin. The hind-wings are white, and faintly edged with brown 
around the tip. It is evident that this insect cannot be included 
in either of the foregoing groups of the owlet-moths. It belongs 
to a distinct family, which may be called Mamestrad^, or Ma- 
mestrians. The caterpillars in this group are generally distin- 
guished by their bright colors ; they live more or less exposed on 
the leaves of plants, and transform in the ground. The moths fly 
by night only ; most of them have the thorax slightly crested ; 
and they are easily known by the zigzag line, near the outer hind 
margin of the fore- wings, forming a W or M in the middle. 

As the caterpillar of the painted Mamestra does not seek con- 
cealment, it may easily be found, and destroyed by hand. 

At the end of the tribe of owlet- moths may be arranged cer- 
tain insects, which, from the structure of their caterpillars and 
their manner of creeping, evidently seem to connect this tribe 
with the Geometers. Some of these caterpillars have the first 
and sometimes also the second pair of proplegs, under the middle 
of the body, so short, that they cannot be used in creeping ; oth- 
ers have only twelve or fourteen legs, the first pair of the prop- 
legs, or the second also, being entirely wanting in them. These 
caterpillars creep with a kind of halting gait, and arch up the 
middle of the body, more or less, with every step they take, 
thereby imitating the gait of the true geometers or span-worms. 
The twelve-legged caterpillars are sometimes injurious to culti- 
vated vegetables ; but not enough so, in this country, to have at- 
tracted much notice. Their moths are distinguished by golden 
or silvery spots on their fore-wings. The species, with the first 
and second pairs of proplegs short and rudimentary, feed mostly 
on the leaves of shrubs and trees ; their moths are of large size, 
42 



330 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

with the hind-wings often crimson, scarlet, or yellow, and traversed 
by black bands. But as these insects are not particularly interest- 
ing to the farmer, any further account of them, in this treatise, 
will be unnecessary. 

3. Geometers. (Geometra.) 

The caterpillars of the Geometr^ of Linnaeus, earth-measur- 
ers, as the term implies, or geometers, span-worms, and loopers, 
have received these several names from their peculiar manner of 
moving, in which they seem to measure or span over the ground, 
step by step, as they proceed. Most of these caterpillars have 
only ten legs ; namely, six, which are jointed and tapering, under 
the forepart of the body, and four fleshy proplegs, at the hinder 
extremity ; the three intermediate pairs of proplegs being want- 
ing. Consequently, in creeping, they arch up the back while 
they bring forward the hinder part of the body, and then, resting 
on their hind-legs, stretch out to their full length, in a stiaight 
line, before taking another step with their hind-legs. Some of 
the Geometers have twelve or fourteen legs ; but the additional 
proplegs are so short that the caterpillars cannot use them in 
creeping, and their motions are the same as those that have only 
ten legs. Some caterpillars with fourteen legs, and wanting only 
the terminal pair of proplegs, are placed in this tribe on account 
of the resemblance of their moths to those of the true Geometers. 
The latter hve on trees and bushes, and most of them undergo 
their transformations upon or in the ground, to reach which, by 
travelling along the branches and down the stem, would be a long 
and tedious journey to them, on account of the deficiency of their 
legs, and the slowness of their gait. But they are not reduced 
to this necessity ; for they have the power of letting themselves 
down from any height, by means of a silken thread, which they 
spin from their mouths while falling. Whenever they are dis- 
turbed they make use of this faculty, drop suddenly, and hang 
suspended, till the danger is past, after which they climb up again 
by the same thread. In order to do this, the span-worm bends 
back its head and catches hold of the thread above its head with 
one of the legs of the third segment, then raising its head it seizes 
the thread with its jaws and fore-legs, and, by repeating the same 



LEPIDOPTERA. 331 

operations with tolerable rapidity, it soon reaches its former sta- 
tion on the tree. These span-worms are naked, or only thinly 
covered with very short down ; they are mostly smooth, but 
sometimes have warts or irregular projections on their backs. 
They change their color usually as they grow older, are some- 
times striped, and sometimes of one uniform color, nearly resem- 
bling the bark of the plants on which they are found. When not 
eating, many of them rest on the two hindmost pairs of legs against 
the side of a branch, with the body extended from the branch, so 
that they might be mistaken for a twig of the tree ; and in this 
position they will often remain for hours together. When about 
to transform, most of these insects descend from the plants on 
which they live, and either bury themselves in the ground, or 
conceal themselves on the surface under a slight covering of 
leaves fastened together with silken threads. Some make more 
regular cocoons, which, however, are very thin, and generally 
more or less covered on the outside with leaves. The cocoons 
of the European, tailed Geometer [Ourapteryx sambucaria)^ 
which lives on the elder, and of our chain-dotted Geometer [Ge- 
ometra catenaria), which is found on the wood-wax, are made 
with regular meshes, like net-work, through which the insects 
may be seen. A very few of the span-worms fasten themselves 
to the stems of plants, and are changed to chrysalids, which hang 
suspended, without the protection of any outer covering. 

In their perfected state these insects are mostly slender-bodied 
moths, with tapering antennae, which are often feathered in the 
males. Their feelers are short and slender ; the tongue is short 
and weak ; the thorax is not crested ; the wings are large, thin, 
and delicate, sometimes angular, and often marked with one or 
two dark-colored oblique bands. They generally rest with the 
wings slightly inclined aifd almost horizontal ; some with them 
extended, and others with the hind-wings covered by the upper 
pair. A very few carry their wings like the Skippers. Some of 
the females are without wings, and are distinguished also by the 
oval and robust form of their bodies. These moths are most 
active in the night ; but some of them may be seen flying in 
thickets during the day-time. They are very short-lived, and die 
soon after their eggs are laid. 



332 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Those kinds, whereof the females are wingless, or have only 
very short, scale-like wings, and naked antennae, while the males 
have large, entire wings, and feathered or downy antenna, seem 
to form a distinct group, which may be named Hybernians (Hr- 
berniad.e), from the principal genus included therein. The 
caterpillars have only ten legs, six before and four behind ; and 
they undergo their transformations in the ground. The insects 
called canker-worms, in this country, are of this kind. The 
moths, from which they are produced, belong to the genus Ani- 
sopteryx,* so named because in some species the wings in the two 
sexes are very unequal in size, and in others the females are 
wingless. In the late Professor Peck's " Natural History of the 
Canker-worm," which was published among the papers of " the 
Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture," and obtained 
a prize from the Society, this insect is called Phalcena vernata^ 
on account of its common appearance in the spring, and also to 
distinguish it from the winter moth (^PhalcEna or Cheimatobia 
brumata) of Europe. In the male canker-worm moth the anten- 
nae have a very narrow, and almost downy edging, on each side, 
hardly to be seen with the naked eye. The feelers are minute, 
and do not extend beyond the mouth. The tongue is not visible. 
The wings are large, very thin and silky; and, when the insect 
is at rest, the fore-wings are turned back, entirely cover the hind- 
wings, and overlap on their inner edges. The fore-wings are 
ash-colored, with a distinct whitish spot on the front edge, near 
the tip ; they are crossed by two jagged, whitish bands, along 
the sides of which there are several blackish dots ; the outermost 
band has an angle near the front edge, within which there is a 
short, faint, blackish line ; and there is a row of black dots, along 
the outer margin, close to the fringe. The hind- wings are pale 
ash-colored, with a faint blackish dot near the middle. The 
wings expand about one inch and a quarter. This is the usual 
appearance of the male, in its most perfect condition ; by which 
it will be seen that it closely resembles the Anisopteryx JEs- 
cularia of Europe. Compared with the latter, I find that our 
canker-worm moth is rather smaller, the wings are darker, propor- 

* Literally unequal wing. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 333 

tionally shorter and more obtuse, the white bands are less distinct, 
and are often entirely wanting, in which case only the whitish 
spot near the tip remains, the hind-wings are more dusky, and 
the feelers are gray instead of being white. Specimens, of a 
rather smaller size, are sometimes found, resembling the figure 
and description given by Professor Peck, in which the whitish 
bands and spot are wanting, and there are three interrupted dusky 
lines across the fore-wings, with an oblique blackish dash near 
the tip. Perhaps they constitute a different species from that of 
the true canker-worm moth. Should this be the case, the latter 
may be called Anisopteryx pometaria, or the Anisopteryx of the 
orchard, while the former should retain the name originally given 
to it by Professor Peck. The female is wingless, and its anten- 
nae are short, slender, and naked. Its body approaches to an 
oval form, but tapers and is turned up behind. It is dark ash- 
colored above, and gray beneath. 

It was formerly supposed that the canker-worm moths came 
out of the ground only in the spring. It is now known that many 
of them rise in the autumn and in the early part of the winter. 
In mild and open winters I have seen them in every month from 
October to March. They begin to make their appearance after 
the first hard frosts in the autumn, usually towards the end of 
October, and they continue to come forth, in greater or smaller 
numbers, according to the mildness or severity of the weather 
after the frosts have begun. Their general time of rising is in 
the spring, beginning about the middle of March, but sometimes 
before, and sometimes after this time ; and they continue to come 
forth for the space of about three weeks. It has been observed 
that there are more females than males among those that appear 
in the autumn and winter, and that the males are most abundant 
in the spring. The sluggish females instinctively make their way 
towards the nearest trees, and creep slowly up their trunks. In 
a few days afterwards they are followed by the winged and active 
males, which flutter about and accompany them in their ascent, 
during which the insects pair. Soon after this, the females lay 
their eggs upon the branches of the trees, placing them on their 
ends, close together in rows, forming clusters of from sixty to 
one hundred eggs or more, which is the number usually laid by 



334 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

each female. The eggs are glued to each other, and to the bark, 
by a grayish varnish, which is impervious to water ; and the clus- 
ters are thus securely fastened in the forks of the small branches, 
or close to the young twigs and buds. Immediately after the 
insects have thus provided for a succession flf their kind, they 
begin to languish, and soon die. The eggs are usually hatched 
between the first and the middle of May, or about the time that 
the red currant is in blossom, and the young leaves of the apple- 
tree begin to start from the bud and grow. The little canker- 
worms, upon making their escape from the eggs, gather upon the 
tender leaves, and, on the occurrence of cold and wet weather, 
creep for shelter into the bosom of the bud, or into the flowers, 
when the latter appear. As this treatise may fall into the hands 
of persons who are not acquainted with the habits and devasta- 
tions of our canker-worms, it should be stated that, where these 
insects prevail, they are most abundant on apple and elm trees ; 
but that cherry, plum, and lime trees, and some other cultivated 
and native trees, as well as many shrubs, often suffer severely 
from their voracity. The leaves first attacked will be found 
pierced with small holes ; these become larger and more irregular 
when the canker-worms increase in size ; and, at last, the latter 
eat nearly all the pulpy parts of the leaves, leaving little more 
than the midrib and veins. A very great difference of color is 
observable among canker-worms of different ages, and even 
among those of the same age and size. It is possible that some 
of these variations may arise from a difference of species ; but it 
is also true that the same species varies much in color. When 
very young, they have two minute warts on the top of the last 
ring ; and they are then generally of a blackish or dusky brown 
color, with a yellowish stripe on each side of the body ; there are 
two whitish bands across the head ; and the belly is also whitish. 
When fully grown, these individuals become ash-colored on the 
back, and black on the sides, below which the pale yellowish line 
remains. Some are found of a dull greenish yellow and others 
of a clay color, with slender interrupted blackish lines on the 
sides, and small spots of the same color on the back. Some are 
green, with two white stripes on the back. The head and the 
feet partake of the general color of the body ; the belly is paler. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 335 

When not eating, they remain stretched out at full length, and 
resting on their fore and hind legs, beneath the leaves. When 
fully grown and well fed, they measure nearly or quite one inch 
in length. They leave off eating when about four weeks old,* 
and begin to quit^e trees ; some creep down by the trunk, but 
great numbers let themselves down by their threads from the 
branches, their instincts prompting them to get to the ground by 
the most direct and easiest course. When thus descending, and 
suspended in great numbers under the limbs of trees overhanging 
the road, they are often swept off by passing carriages, and are 
thus conveyed to other places. After reaching the ground, they 
immediately burrow in the earth, to the depth of from two to six 
inches, unless prevented by weakness or the nature of the soil. 
In the latter case, they die, or undergo their transformations on 
the surface. In the former, they make little cavities or cells in 
the ground, by turning round repeatedly and fastening the loose 
grains of earth about them with a few silken threads. Within 
twenty-four hours afterwards, they are changed to chrysalids in 
their cells. The chrysalis is of a light brown color, and varies 
in size according to the sex of the insect contained in it ; that of 
the female being the largest, and being destitute of a covering for 
wings, which is found in the chrysalis of the males. The occur- 
rence of mild weather after a severe frost stimulates some of 
these insects to burst their chrysalis skins and come forth in the 
perfected state ; and this last transformation, as before stated, 
may take place in the autumn, or in the course of the winter, as 
well as in the spring ; it is also retarded, in some individuals, for 
a year or more beyond the usual time. They come out of the 
ground mostly in the night, when they may be seen struggling 
through the grass as far as the limbs extend from the body of the 
trees under which they had been buried. As the females are 
destitute of wings, they are not able to wander far from the trees 
upon which they had lived in the caterpillar state. Canker-worms 
are therefore naturally confined to a very limited space, from 



* In the year 1841, the red-currant flowered, and the canker-worms appeared, 
on the fifteenth of May. The insects were very abundant on the fifteenth of 
June, and on the seventeenth scarcely one was to be seen. 



336 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

which they spread year after year. Accident, however, will of- 
ten carry them far from their native haunts, and in this way, prob- 
ably, they have extended to places remote from each other. 
Where they have become established, and have been neglected, 
their ravages are often very great. In the early^art of the season 
the canker-worms do not attract much attention ; but it is in 
June, when they become extremely voracious, that the mischief 
they have done is rendered ap| arent, when we have before us 
the melancholy sight of the foliage of our fruit-trees and of our 
noble elms reduced to withered and lifeless shreds, and whole 
orchards looking as if they had been suddenly scorched with fire. 
In order to protect our trees from the ravages of canker-worms, 
where these looping spoilers abound, it should be our aim, if pos- 
sible, to prevent the wingless females from ascending the trees to 
deposit their eggs. This can be done by the application of tar 
around the body of the tree, either directly on the bark, as has 
been the most common practice, or, what is better, over a broad 
belt of clay-mortar, or on strips of old canvass or of strong pa- 
per, from six to twelve inches wide, fastened around the trunk 
with strings. The tar must be applied as early as the first of 
November, and perhaps in October, and it should be renewed 
daily as long as the insects continue rising ; after which the bands 
may be removed, and the tar should be entirely scraped from the 
bark. When all this has been properly and seasonably done, it 
has proved effectual. The time, labor, and expense attending 
the use of tar, and the injury that it does to the trees when al- 
lowed to run and remain on the bark, have caused many persons 
to neglect this method, and some to try various modifications of 
it, and other expedients. Among the modifications may be men- 
tioned a horizontal and close-fitting collar of boards, fastened 
around the trunk, and smeared beneath with tar ; or four boards, 
nailed together, like a box without top or bottom, around the 
base of the tree, to receive the tar on the outside. These can 
be used to protect a few choice trees in a garden, or around a 
house or a public square, but will be found too expensive to be 
applied to any great extent. Collars of tin-plate, fastened around 
the trees, and sloping downwards like an inverted tunnel, have 
been proposed, upon the supposition that the moths would not be 



LEPIDOPTERA. 337 

able to creep in an inverted position, beneath the smooth and 
sloping surface. This method will also prove too expensive for 
general adoption, even should it be found to answer the purpose. 
A belt of cotton-wool, which it has been thought would entangle 
the feet of the insects, and thus keep them from ascending the 
trees, has not proved an effectual bar to them. Little square or 
circular troughs of tin or of lead, filled with cheap fish oil, and 
placed around the trees, three feet or more above the surface of 
the ground, with a stuffing of cloth, hay, or sea-weed between 
them and the trunk, have long been used by various persons in 
Massachusetts with good success ; and the only objections to 
them are the cost of the troughs, the difficulty of fixing and keep- 
ing them in their places, and the injury suffered by the trees 
when the oil is v^^ashed or blown out and falls upon the bark. 
Mr. Jonathan Dennis, Jr., of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, has 
obtained a patent for a circular leaden trough to contain oil, offer- 
ing some advantages over those that have heretofore been used, 
although it does not entirely prevent the escape of the oil, and 
the nails, with which it is secured, are found to be injurious to 
the trees. These troughs ought not to be nailed to the trees, 
but should be supported by a few wooden wedges driven between 
them and the trunks. A stuffing of cloth, cotton, or tow, should 
never be used ; sea-weed and fine hay, which will not absorb the 
oil, are much better. Before the troughs are fastened and filled, 
the body of the tree should be well coated with clay-paint or 
white-wash, to absorb the oil that may fall upon it. Care should 
be taken to renew the oil as often as it escapes or becomes filled 
with the insects. These troughs will be found more economical 
and less troublesome than the application of tar, and may safely 
be recommended and employed, if proper attention is given to the 
precautions above named. - Some persons fasten similar troughs, 
to contain oil, around the outer sides of an open box enclosing 
the base of the tree, and a projecting ledge is nailed on the edge 
of the box to shed the rain ; by this contrivance, all danger of 
hurting the tree with the oil is entirely avoided. In the " Man- 
chester Guardian," an English newspaper, of the fourth of No- 
vember, 1840, is the following article on the use of melted Indian 
rubber to prevent insects from climbing up trees. " At a late 
43 



338 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

meeting of the Entomological Society, [of London ?] Mr. J. H. 
Fennell communicated the following successful mode of prevent- 
ing insects ascending the trunks of fruit-trees. Let a piece of 
Indian rubber be burnt over a gallipot, into which it will gradu- 
ally drop in the condition of a viscid juice, which state, it appears, 
it will always retain ; for Mr. Fennell has, at the present time, 
some which has been melted for upwards of a year, and has been 
exposed to all weathers without undergoing the slightest change. 
Having melted the Indian rubber, let a piece of cord or worsted 
be smeared with it, and then tied several times round the trunk. 
The melted substance is so very sticky, that the insects will be 
prevented, and generally captured, in their attempts to pass over 
it. About three pennyworth of Indian rubber is sufficient for the 
protection of twenty ordinary sized fruit-trees." Applied in this 
way it would not be sufficient to keep the canker-worm moths 
from getting up the trees ; for the first comers would soon bridge 
over the cord with their bodies, and thus affiord a passage to their 
followers. To insure success, it should be melted in larger 
quantities, and daubed with a brush upon strips of cloth or paper, 
fastened round the trunks of the trees. Worn out Indian rubber 
shoes, which are worth little or nothing for any other purpose, 
can be put to this use. This plan has been tried by a few per- 
sons in the vicinity of Boston, some of whom speak favorably of 
it. It has been suggested that the melted rubber might be appli- 
ed immediately to the bark without injuring the trees. A little 
conical mound of sand surrounding the base of the tree is found 
to be impassable to the moths, so long as the sand remains dry ; 
but they easily pass over it when the sand is wet, and they 
come out of the ground in wet, as often as in dry weather. 

Some attempts have been made to destroy the canker-worms 
after they were hatched from the eggs, and were dispersed over 
the leaves of the trees. It is said that some persons have saved 
their trees from these insects by freely dusting air-slacked lime 
over them while the leaves were wet with dew. Showering the 
trees with mixtures that are found useful to destroy other insects, 
has been tried by a few, and, although attended with a good deal 
of trouble and expense, it may be worth our while to apply such 
remedies upon small and choice trees. Mr. David Haggerston, 



LEPIDOPTERA. 339 

of Watertovvn, Mass., has used, for this purpose, a mixture of 
water and oil-soap (an article to be procured from the manufacto- 
ries where whale oil is purified,) in the proportion of one pound of 
the soap to seven gallons of water ; and he states that this liquor, 
when thrown on the trees with a garden engine, will destroy the 
canker-worm and many other insects, without injuring the foliage 
or the fruit. Jarring or shaking the limbs of the trees will dis- 
turb the canker-worms, and cause many of them to spin down, 
when their threads may be broken off with a pole ; and if the 
troughs around the trees are at the same time replenished with 
oil, or the tar is again applied, the insects will be caught in their 
attempts to creep up the trunks. In the same way, also, those 
that are coming down the trunks to go into the ground will be 
caught and killed. If greater pains were to be taken to destroy 
the insects in the caterpillar state, their numbers would soon 
greatly diminish. 

Even after they have left the trees, have gone into the ground, 
and have changed their forms, they are not wholly beyond the 
reach of means for destroying them. One person told me that 
his swine, which he was in the habit of turning into his orchard in 
the autumn, rooted up and killed great numbers of the chrysalids 
of the canker-worms. Some persons have recommended digging 
or ploughing under the trees, in the autumn, with the hope of 
crushing some of the chrysalids by so doing, and of exposing 
others to perish with the cold of the following winter. If hogs are 
then allowed to go among the trees, and a few grains of corn are 
scattered on the loosened soil, these animals will eat many of the 
chrysalids as well as the corn, and will crush others with their 
feet. Mr. S. P. Fowler* thinks it better to dig around the 
trees in July, while the shells of the insects are soft and tender. 
He and Mr. John Kenriok, of Newton, Mass., advise us to re- 
move the soil to the distance of four or five feet from the trunk 
of the trees, and to the depth of six inches, to cart it away and 
replace it with an equal quantity of compost or rich earth. In 
this way, many of the insects will be removed also ; but, unless 



* See '\Yankee Farmer" of July 18, 1840, and " New England Farmer" of 
June 2, 1841, for some valuable remarks by Mr. Fowler. 



340 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the earth, thus carried away, is thrown into some pond-hole, and 
left covered with water, many of the insects contained in it will 
undergo their transformations and come out alive the next year. 

Canker-worms are subject to the attacks of many enemies. 
Great numbers of them are devoured by several kinds of birds, 
which live almost entirely upon them during their season. They 
are also eaten by a very large and splendid ground-beetle yCalo- 
soma scrutator), that appears about the time when these insects 
begin to leave the trees. These beetles do not fly, but they run 
about in the grass after the canker-worms, and even mount upon 
the trunks of the trees to seize them as they come down. The 
latter are also stung by a four-winged ichneumon-fly, which de- 
posits an egg in every canker-worm thus wounded. From the 
egg is hatched a little maggot, that preys on the fatty substance of 
the canker-worm, and weakens it so much that it is unable to go 
through its future transformations. I have seen one of these flies 
sting several canker-worms in succession, and swarms of them 
may be observed around the trees as long as the canker-worms 
remain. Their services, therefore, are doubtless very considera- 
ble! Among a large number of canker-worms, taken promiscu- 
ously from various trees, I found that nearly one third of the 
whole were unable to finish their transformations, because they 
had been attacked by internal enemies of another kind. These 
were little maggots, that lived singly within the bodies of the 
canker-worms, till the latter died from weakness ; after which 
the maggots underwent a change, and finally came out of the 
bodies of their victims in the form of small two-winged cuckoo- 
flies, belonging to the genus Tachina. Mr. E. C. Herrick, of 
New-Haven, Connecticut, has made the interesting discovery 
that the eggs of the canker-worm moth are pierced by a tiny 
four-winged fly, a species of Platygaster, which goes from egg to 
egg, and drops in each of them one of her own eggs. Some- 
times every canker-worm egg in a cluster, will be found to have 
been thus punctured and seeded for a future harvest of the Platy- 
gaster. The young of this Platygaster is an exceedingly minute 
maggot, hatched within the canker-worm egg, the shell of which, 
though only one thirtieth of an inch long, serves for its habitation, 
and the contents for its food, till it is fully grown ; after which 



LEPIDOPTERA. 341 

it becomes a chrysalis within the same shell, and in due time 
comes out a Platygaster fly, like its parent. This last transfor- 
mation Mr. Herrick found to take place towards the end of June, 
from eggs laid in November of the year before ; and he thinks 
that the flies continue alive through the summer, till the appear- 
ance of the canker-worm moths in the autumn afibrds them the 
opportunity of laying their eggs for another brood. As these 
little parasites prevent the hatching of the eggs wherein they are 
bred, and as they seem to be very abundant, they must be of 
great use in preventing the increase of the canker-worm. With- 
out doubt such wisely appointed means as these were once 
enough to keep within due bounds these noxious insects ; but, 
since our forests, their natural food, and our birds, their greatest 
enemies, have disappeared before the woodman's axe and the 
sportsman's gun, we are left, to our own ingenuity, perseverance, 
and united efforts, to contrive and carry into effect other means 
for checking their ravages. 

Apple, elm, and lime trees, are sometimes injured a good deal 
by another kind of span-worm, larger than the canker-worm, and 
very different from it in appearance. It is of a bright yellow 
color, with ten crinkled black lines along the top of the back ; the 
head is rust colored ; and the belly is paler than the rest of the 
body. When fully grown, it measures about one inch and a 
quarter in length. It often rests with the middle of the body 
curved upwards a little, and sometimes even without the support 
of its fore-legs. The leaves of the lime seem to be its natural 
and favorite food, for it may be found on this tree every year ; 
but I have often seen it in considerable abundance, with common 
canker-worms, on other trees. It is hatched rather later, and 
does not leave the trees quite so soon as the latter. About or 
soon after the middle of June it spins down from the trees, goes 
into the ground, and changes to a chrysalis in a little cell five or 
six inches below the surface ; and from this it comes out in the 
moth state tow'ards the end of October or during the month of 
November. More rarely its last transformation is retarded till 
the spring. The females are wingless and grub-like, with slen- 
der thread-shaped antennae. As soon as they leave the ground 
they creep up the trees, and lay their eggs in little clusters, here 



342 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and there on the branches. The males have large and delicate 
wings, and their antennae have a narrow feathery edging on each 
side. They follow the females, and pair with them on the trees. 
This kind of moth closely resembles the lime-looper or umber 
moth {Hybernia defoliaria) of Europe ; but differs from it so 
much in the larva state, that I have not the slightest doubt of its 
being a distinct species, and accordingly name it Hybernia Tilia- 
ria, the lime-tree winter-moth, from Tilia, the scientific name 
of its favorite tree. The fore-wings of the male are rusty buff 
or nankin-yellow, sprinkled with very fine brownish dots, and 
banded with two, transverse, wavy, brown lines, the band nearest 
the shoulders being often indistinct ; in the space between the 
bands, and near to the thick edge of the wing, there is generally a 
brown dot. The hind-wings are much paler than the others, and 
have a small brownish dot in the middle. The color of the body 
is the same as that of the fore-wings ; and the legs are ringed 
with buff and brown. The wings expand one inch and three 
quarters. The body of the female is grayish or yellowish 
white ; it is sprinkled on the sides with black dots, and there 
are two square black spots on the top of each ring, except the 
last, which has only one spot. The front of the head is black ; 
and the antennae and the legs are ringed with black and white. 
The tail is tipped with a tapering, jointed egg-tube, that can be 
drawn in and out, like the joints of a telescope. Exclusive of 
this tube, the female measures about half an inch in length. The 
eggs are beautiful objects when seen under a microscope. They 
are of an oval shape, and pale yellow color, and are covered with 
little raised lines, like net-work, or like the cells of a honey- 
comb. 

As these span-worms appear at the same time as canker- 
worms, resemble them in their habits, and often live on the 
same trees, they can be kept in check by such means as are 
found useful when employed against canker-worms. 

Probably more than one hundred different kinds of Geometers 
may be found in Massachusetts alone. Seventy-eight are already 
known to me. Some of these are small, and are not otherwise 
remarkable ; some are distinguished for their greater size and 
beauty in the moth state, or for the singularity of the forms and 



LEPIDOPTERA. 343 

habits of their caterpillars. None of them, however, have be- 
come so notorious on account of their devastations as the species 
already described. 

4. Delta Moths. (FyraJides.) 

The Pyralides of Linnaeus are nearly akin to the Geometers. 
Latreille called them Deltoides, because the form of the moths, 
when their wings are closed, is triangular, like that of the 
Greek letter A. For the same reason I have called them Delta- 
moths. The body, in these moths, is long and slender. The 
fore-wings are long and rather narrow, and cover the hind-wings 
nearly horizontally when at rest. The feelers are generally very 
long, flattened sidewise, and more or less turned up at the end. 
The tongue in some is of moderate length, in others it is very 
small or invisible. The antennse are long and generally simple or 
bristle-formed in both sexes ; in some males, however, they are 
feathered, and in a few others they have a singular knot or crook 
in the middle. The legs are long and slender ; and the first pair 
is often fringed with tufts of long hairs. Most of these moths fly 
at night ; a (ew are on the wing in the daytime also. They 
generally prefer moist and shady places, where the long grass 
and thick foliage shelter them from the light and heat of the sun. 
Some of them frequent houses. The meal-moth {Pyralis Jarina- 
lis), the caterpillar of which may be found in old flour-barrels, is 
often seen on the ceilings of rooms, sitting with its tail curved over 
its back. The fore-wings of this pretty moth are light brown, 
crossed by two curved white lines, and with a dark chocolate- 
brown spot on the base and tip of each. The tabby, or grease- 
moth {Aglossa pinguinalis)^ the larva of which lives in greasy 
animal substances, is also to be found in houses, and is known by 
its narrow glossy wings, of a smoky gray color, crossed by wavy 
lighter colored bands ; its tongue is not visible. The motions 
of some of the day-flying kinds (Simaethis) are very curious. 
When they alight upon a leaf, they whirl round sidewise, in a 
circular direction, with the head in the centre of the circle, and 
then return in the contrary direction, and repeat these gyrations 
several times in succession. 

The larvae or caterpillars of the Delta-moths are long and 



344 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

slender, tapering at each end, and naked, or with only a few 
short hairs, which are rarely visible to the naked eye. Some of 
them have sixteen legs, others have only fourteen. The latter 
creep very much like the span-worms, but are more active and 
quick in their motions. Most of them hve exposed upon or 
under the leaves of plants, and, when they come to their full 
growth they enclose themselves in cocoons formed of folded 
leaves thinly lined with silk, in which they undergo their trans- 
formations. Some kinds {Hydrccampa and Petrophila) live in 
the water upon aquatic plants, and secure themselves in cylindri- 
cal leafy cases, fitted to cover the whole of the body except the 
head and six fore-legs, and made air-tight. These cases pre- 
vent the water from getting into the lateral breathing holes of the 
caterpillars, and contain a sufficient quantity of air for them to 
breathe ; and, with them, they can easily move about under the 
surface, upon the plants which serve them for food. Some of 
the aquatic kinds do not make these air-tight cases, for they do 
not need them, as they breathe through fringed gills, placed 
along the sides of their bodies. Thus we see that even aquatic 
plants are inhabited by peculiar tribes of insects, which keep in 
check their redundant vegetation, and which are fitted, by extra- 
ordinary and curious contrivances, for the element wherein they 
are appointed to live. These aquatic insects stand on the limits 
of the order, and connect the Lepidoptera with the J^europtera, 
by means of the May-flies (Phryganeadce) belonging to the latter 
order. 

Those caterpillars of the Pyralides that have only fourteen legs, 
may be cahed Herminians (HERMiNiADiE), after the principal 
genus in the group. The hop-vine is often infested by great num- 
bers of these caterpillars. They eat large holes in the leaves, and 
thereby sometimes greatly injure the plant. Caterpillars of this 
kind have also been observed on the hop in Europe, from whence 
ours may have been introduced ; but until specimens from Europe 
and this country are compared together, in all their states, it 
win be well to consider the latter as distinct. Our hop-vine 
caterpillars are false-loopers, bending up the back a little when 
they creep, because the first pair of proplegs, found in other 
caterpillars, is wanting in them. The rings of their bodies are 



LEPIDOPTERA. 345 

rather prominent, the cross-hnes between them being deep. 
They are of a green color, with two longitudinal white lines 
along the back, a dark green line in the middle between them, 
and an indistinct whitish hne on each side of the body. The 
head is green, and very regularly spotted with minute black dots, 
from each of which arises a very short hair. There are similar 
dots and hairs arranged in two transverse rows on each of the 
rings. When disturbed they bend their bodies suddenly and 
with a jerk, first on one side and then on the other, each lime 
leaping to a considerable distance, so that it is difficult to catch or 
hold them. They make no webs on the leaves, and do not sus- 
pend themselves by silken threads like the Geometers ; but they 
are very active, creep fast, and soon get upon the leaves again af- 
ter leaping off. When fully grown they are about eight tenths of 
an inch long. They then form a thin, imperfect, silky cocoon 
within a folded leaf, or in some crevice or sheltered spot, and are 
changed to brownish chrysalids, which present nothing remarkable 
in their appearance. Three weeks afterwards the moths come 
forth from these cocoons. There are two broods of these insects 
in the course of the summer. The caterpillars of the first brood 
appear in May and June, and are transformed to moths towards 
the end of June, and during the early part of .July. Those of the 
second brood appear in July and August, and are changed to 
moths in September. The insects of the second brood are much 
the most numerous usually, and do much more damage to the hop- 
vine than the others. The moth has been named Hypena Humuli, 
the hop-vine Hypena, upon the supposition that it is distinct 
from the Hypena rostralis^ or hop-vine snout-moth of Europe. 
These moths are readily known by their long, wide, and flattened 
feelers, which are held close together, and project horizontally 
from the forepart of the head, in the manner of a snout. The 
antennae in both sexes are naked, and bristle-formed. The wings 
vary in color, being sometimes dusky or blackish brown, and 
sometimes of a much lighter rusty brown color. The fore-wings 
are marbled with gray beyond the middle, and have a distinct 
oblique gray spot on the -tip ; they are crossed by two wavy 
blackish l^ines, one near the middle, and the other near the outer 
hind margin ; these lines are formed by little elevated black tufts, 
44 



346 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and there are also two similar tufts on the middle of the wing. 
The hind-wings are dusky brown or light brown, with a paler 
fringe, and are without bands or spots. The wings expand about 
one inch and a quarter. 

The means for destroying the hop-vine caterpillars are shower- 
ing or syringing the plants with strong soap-suds, or with a solu- 
tion of oil-soap in water, in the proportion of two pounds of the 
soap to fourteen or fifteen gallons of water. 

The foregoing is the only kind of Delta-moth that appears to 
be particularly injurious to any of our useful or cultivated plants. 

5. Leaf-rollers. (^Tortrices.) 

There are many caterpillars that curl up the edges of the 
leaves of plants into little cylindrical rolls, open at each end, and 
fastened together with bands or threads of silk. These rolls 
serve at once for the habitations and the food of the insects ; and 
to the latter Linnaeus gave the name of Tortrices, derived from 
a Latin word signifying to curl or twist. All the caterpillars 
now put in this tribe are not leaf-rollers. Some of them live in 
leaf and flower buds, and fasten the leaves together so that the 
bud cannot open, while they devour the tender substance within. 
Some live in a kind of tent formed of several leaves, drawn to- 
gether and secured with silken threads. Others are found in the 
tender shoots or under the bark of plants. A iew bore into 
young fruits, which they cause to ripen and fall prematurely. A 
still smaller number of kinds live on the leaves of plants, exposed 
to view, and without any kind of covering over them. Most of 
these insects, when disturbed, let themselves down by threads, 
like the Geometers. Very few of them make cocoons ; the 
greater number transforming within the rolled leaves, or in the 
other situations wherein they usually dwell. They are furnished 
with sixteen legs, and their bodies are nearly or quite naked. 
Many of their chrysalids have two rows of minute prickles across 
each of the rings of the hind-body, by the help of which they 
push themselves half-way out of their habitations, when the in- 
cluded moths are about to come forth. 

The moths of this tribe are mostly of small size, very iev; of 
them expanding more than one inch. They carry their wings 



LEPIDOPTERA. 347 

like a steep roof over their bodies when they are at rest. Their 
fore-wings are very much curved and are very broad at the shoul- 
ders, and hence these insects are called Platyomides, that is, 
broad shoulders, by the French naturalists. These wings are 
generally very prettily banded and spotted, and are sometimes 
ornamented with brilliant metallic spots. The hind-wings are 
plain, and of an uniform dusky or grayish color, and the inner 
edge is folded like a fan against the side of the body. Their 
antennae are naked or threadlike. Their feelers, two in number, 
are broad, of moderate length, or project like a short beak in 
front of the head, and are never curved upwards. The spiral 
tongue is mostly short and sometimes invisible. The body is 
rather short and thick, and the legs are also much shorter in 
proportion than in the Delta- moths. These little moths fly only 
in the evening and night, and remain at rest during the day upon 
or near the plants inhabited by their caterpillars. They are most 
abundant in midsummer, but certain species appear in the spring 
or autumn. The habits of the Tortrices, in all their states, are 
not yet known well enough to enable us to group the insects 
together under family names. 

The caterpillars of some of our largest species are found on 
the ends of the branches of various trees and bushes, in nests, 
made of the young leaves drawn together in bunches, and fast- 
ened with threads. In the middle of these nests the caterpillars 
live, either singly, or in companies of several individuals togeth- 
er. Nests of this kind, containing a large number of caterpillars, 
may often be seen on oak-trees in the summer. The chrysalids 
force their way partly out of the nests by the help of the trans- 
verse rows of prickles on their backs, when the moths are about 
to make their escape. The moths resemble in form and general 
appearance those of another species, the caterpillars of which 
live singly in much smaller nests, on apple-trees and rose-bushes. 
Early in May, or soon after the buds of the apple-tree begin to 
open, these little caterpillars begin their labors. They curl up 
and fasten together the small and tender leaves that supply them 
both with shelter and food ; and in this way, they often do con- 
siderable^ damage to the trees. These caterpillars are sometimes 
of a pale green color, with the head and the top of the first ring 



348 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

brownish ; and sometimes tlie whole body is brownish or dull 
flesh-red ; they are rough to the touch with minute warts, each 
of which produces a very short hair, invisible to the naked eye. 
They come to their full size towards the middle of June, and 
then measure nearly or quite half an inch in length. After this, 
they line the inner surface of the curled leaves, composing their 
nests, with a web of silk, and are then changed to chrysalids of 
a dark brown color. Towards the end of June, or early in July, 
the chrysalis pushes itself half way out of its nest, and bursts 
open at the upper end, so that the moth may come out. The 
moth closely resembles the Lozotcenia * oporana of Europe, but 
differs from it in having the fore-wings broader at the base, more 
curved on the front edge, and more hooked at the tip, and its 
markings are also somewhat different. It may be called LoxoicE- 
nia Rosaceana, the oblique banded moth of the Rose tribe, for 
to the latter the apple-tree belongs as well as the rose. The 
fore-wings of this moth are very much arched on their outer 
edge, and curve in the contrary direction at the tip, like a little 
hook or short tail. They are of a light cinnamon-brown color, 
crossed with little wavy darker brown lines, and with three broad 
oblique dark brown bands, whereof one covers the base of the 
wing, and is oftentimes indistinct or wanting, the second crosses 
the middle of the wing, and the third, which is broad on the front 
edge and narrow behind, is near the outer hind margin of the 
wing. The hind-wings are ochre-yellow, with the folded part 
next to the body blackish. It expands one inch or a little more. 
Little caterpillars of another species are sometimes found in 
May and June in the opening buds and among the tender leaves 
of the apple-tree. They live singly in the buds, the leaves of 
which they fasten together and then devour. These caterpillars 
are of a pale and dull brownish color, warty and slightly downy 
like the foregoing kind, with the head and the top of the first ring 
dark shining brown ; and a dark brown spot appears through the 

* This word was probably an error of the press in the " Catalogue " of Mr. Ste- 
phens, by whom the genus was proposed. It has, however, been copied in sever- 
al other works by other authors, without correction or comment. Loxntcenia, 
meaning oblique band, seems to be the right name for the moths of this genus 
which are distinguished by the oblique bands on their fore-wings. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 349 

skin on the top of the eighth ring. They generally come to 
their growth by the middle of June, and are changed to shining 
brown chrysalids within the curled leaves, in a little web of silk, 
wherewith their retreats are lined. The chrysalis has only one 
row of prickles across the rings of the back. The moths come 
out early in July. They very closely resemble the European 
Pevthina comitana*, and perhaps may be merely a variety of it. 
The head and thorax are dark ash-colored. The fore-wings are 
of the same color at each end, and grayish white in the middle, 
mottled with dark gray ; there are two small eye-like spots on 
each of them ; one near the tip, consisting of four little black 
marks, placed close together in a row, on a light brown ground, 
the inner marks being longer than the others ; the second eye- 
spot is near the inner hind angle, and is formed by three minute 
black spots, arranged in a triangle, in the middle of which there 
is sometimes a black dot. The hind-wings are dusky brown. 
This moth expands from one half to six tenths of an inch. It 
may be called Penthina oculana, the eye-spotted Penthina. My 
attention was called to the depredations of this bud-moth, and of 
the preceding species, by John Owen, Esq., of Cambridge, by 
whom the moths were raised from the caterpillars, and presented 
to me. It is difficult at first to conceive how such insignificant 
creatures can occasion so much mischief as they are found to do. 
This seems to arise from the number of the insects, and their 
mode of attack, whereby the opening foliage is checked in its 
growth, or nipped in the bud. To pull off and crush the wither- 
ed clusters of leaves containing the caterpillars or the chrysalids, 
is the only remedy that occurs to me. It were to be wished 
that some better way of putting a stop to the ravages of the leaf- 
rollers and bud-moths, that infest many of our fruit-trees and 
flowering shrubs, could bcdiscovered. 

Apricot, peach, and plum trees, when trained against walls in 
the open air, are said to suffer very much sometimes from the 
attacks of insects whose habits resemble those of the eye-spotted 
Penthina. But, as I have not yet seen them in thfe moth state, 



* Spllonota comitana, Stephens; Pcecilochnmia comitana, Curtis ; Penthina lus- 
cana, Duponchel. 



350 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

I cannot say whether they are of the same species as the bud- 
moth above named. Perhaps they are identical with the apri- 
cot-bud caterpillars [Ditula aiigustiorana), of Europe, the dep- 
redations of which have been described by Mr. Westwood in 
the fourteenth volume of the " Gardener's Magazine". Be- 
sides picking off the curled and confined clusters of leaves, when 
practicable, I would recommend thoroughly drenching the trees 
with Mr. Haggerston's remedy, a pound of oil-soap in from 
seven to ten gallons of water, in the hope that some of the mix- 
ture might penetrate the injured buds and leaves, and destroy the 
caterpillars concealed therein. A mixture of one gallon of the 
liquor expressed by tobacconists from tobacco, with five gallons 
of water, has been used to the same intent. 

Roses are infested with several kinds of caterpillars belonging 
to this tribe. Mr. Westwood has described one of them, and 
mentions others that are found in Europe, in the thirteenth vol- 
ume of the " Gardener's Magazine ". Similar species are not 
uncommon in this country. Some of these spoilers fasten upon 
the leaves, and roll them up, or stick them together, to serve 
them for food and shelter ; while others lurk unseen in the flower- 
buds, and canker them to the heart, before they can spread their 
lovely petals to the sun, and breathe out their fragrance to the 
air. A particular description of each of these insects would oc- 
cupy too much space here ; and I can only add that the worm in 
the bud is to be destroyed only by hand. 

Pine and fir trees are also injured by some of the Toririces, 
that pierce the tender shoots and terminal buds. The seat of 
their depredations becomes known by the oozing of the resin and 
by the withering of the bud or shoot. The latter commonly dies 
in consequence of the injury, the upward growth is checked, and 
the stem only puts forth side shoots the following year. Some 
one of these side shoots, in time, takes the place of the leading 
shoot, and thus gives to the trunk an irregular and crooked ap- 
pearance, and renders it unfit for timber. The history of several 
European Tortrices or turpentine-moths, that thus injure pines 
and firs, is given in Kollar's " Treatise", wherein we are advised 
to search for the lumps of turpentine in the autumn, and destroy 
the caterpillars under them, or to cut off the injured shoots and 



LEPIDOPTERA. 351 

burn them with their inhabitants. This advice it may be proper 
for us to follow, although it is not yet certain that our turpentine- 
moths are actually the same as those of Europe. 

Among the insects, that have been brought to America with 
other productions of Europe, may be mentioned the apple-worm, 
as it is here called, which has become naturalized wherever the 
apple-tree has been introduced. This mischievous creature has 
sometimes been mistaken for the plum-weevil {Rliynchoiinis Co- 
notrachelus Nenuphar), described in another part* of this essay ; 
but it may be easily distinguished therefrom by its shape, its hab- 
its, and its transformations. Although the plum-weevil prefers 
stone fruit, it is sometimes found in apples also ; and Dr. Joel 
Burnett, of Southborough, Massachusetts, has lately sent to me 
specimens of plum-weevils, in the pupa state, raised by him from 
grubs in apples. On the other hand, the apple-worm has never 
been found here in plums. It is not a grub, but a true caterpillar, 
belonging to the Tortrix tribe, and in due time, is changed to a 
moth, called Carpocapsa Pomonellaj, the codling-moth, or fruit- 
moth of the apple. An anonymous writer, in the "Entomologi- 
cal Magazine "| of London, has well remarked that this moth " is 
the most beautiful of the beautiful tribe to which it belongs ; yet, 
from its habits not being known, it is seldom seen in the moth 
state ; and the apple-grower knows no more than the man in the 
moon to what cause he is indebted for his basketfuls of worm- 
eaten windfalls in the stillest weather." 

Before proceeding to a description of this insect, it may be 
proper to state some facts respecting the habits of the plum-wee- 
vil, that were omitted in the foregoing part of this essay, with 
others that have recently come to my knowledge ; for, by means 
of these, the difference between the two insects will be made 
more clear. It must be bcH-ne in mind that this plum-weevil, an 
insect unknown in Europe, when arrived at maturity, is a little, 

* Page 66. 

t Tinea Fomonella, L. ; Pyralis Pomana, F. If the modern name of the ge- 
nus be correct, it was probably formed from two Greek words signifying to devour 
fruit. Perhaps the name should have been Carpocampa, thai is, in English, fruit- 
caterpillar. X 

t Vol. I. page 144. 



352 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

rough, dark brown or blackish beetle, looking like a dried bud, 
when it is shaken from the trees, which resemblance is increased 
by its habit of drawing up its legs and bending its snout close to 
the lower side of its body, and remaining for a time without mo- 
tion and seemingly lifeless. In stinging the fruit, before laying 
its eggs, it uses its short curved snout, which is armed at the tip 
with a pair of very small nippers ; and by means of this weapon, 
it makes, in the tender skin of the young plum or apple, a cres- 
cent-shaped incision, similar to what would be formed by indent- 
ing the fruit with the finger nail. Very rarely is there more than 
one incision made in the same fruit ; and in the wound, the weevil 
lays only a single egg. The insect hatched from this egg is a little 
whitish grub, destitute of feet, and very much like a maggot in ap- 
pearance, except that it has a distinct, rounded, light brown head. 
Through the kind attentions of several gentlemen I have been fur- 
nished with numerous specimens of these grubs, obtained from the 
fruit and from the warty tumors of the trees ; and to the liberality 
of another gentleman am indebted for an opportunity of examining 
the same with a powerful microscope, presented to me for the 
purpose. By this means I have satisfactorily ascertained that the 
grubs from the fruit and from the warts were exactly alike, and 
that both were without feet. It appears, furthermore, that the tu- 
mors on plum and on cherry trees are infested not only by these 
insects, but also by another kind of grub, provided with legs, and 
occasionally by the wood-eating caterpillars of the JEgeria exi- 
tiosa, or peach-tree borer. When the grubs of the plum-weevil 
are fully grown, they go into the ground, and are there changed to 
chrysalids of a white color, having the legs and wings free and 
capable of some motion ; and finally they leave the ground in the 
form of little beetles, exactly like those which had previously stung 
the fruit. Further observation seems to be wanting before it can 
be proved that the cankerous warts on plum and cherry trees arise 
from the irritating punctures of the plum-weevils and of the other 
insects that occasionally make these warts their places of abode ; 
although it must be allowed that the well-known production of 
galls by insects on oak-trees and on other plants, would lead us 
to suppose that those of the plum-tree have a similar origin. In 
addition to the means already recommended for preventing the 



LEPIDOPTERA. 353 

ravages of plum-weevils, I w^ould observe that v^^all-fruit can be 
perfectly secured by a screen of millinet or close netting, which 
should be put on as soon as the fruit is formed, and should re- 
main till it begins to ripen. The opportunity that has lately been 
offered to me for proving that the plum-weevil occasionally at- 
tacks the apple also, the destruction of great quantities of stone- 
fruit every year, and in some instances the entire failure of the 
crop, from the ravages of this insect, and the interest that has 
been taken in the subject by the " Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society," must be my apology for this digression, if the reasons 
already given for it are not enough. 

The apple-worm has been long known in Europe, and its his- 
tory has been written by Rosel, Reaumur, Kollar, Westwood*, 
and other European naturalists. A good account of it, and of its 
transformations, by Joseph Tufts, Esq., of Charlestown, Massa- 
chusetts, was published in the year 1819, in the fifth volume of 
" The Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal ;" and 
Mr. Joseph Burrelle, of Quincy, Massachusetts, has also made 
some remarks on the same insect, in the eighteenth volume of 
*' The New-England Farmer. "f At various times, between the 
middle of June and the first of July, the apple-worm moths may 
be found. Tliey are sometimes seen in houses in the even- 
ing, trying to get through the windows into the open air, having 
been brought in with fruit while they were in the caterpillar state. 
Their fore-wings, when seen at a distance, have somewhat the 
appearance of brown watered silk ; when closely examined they 
will be found to be crossed by numerous gray and brown lines, 
scalloped like the plumage of a bird ; and near the hind angle 
there is a large, oval, dark brown spot, the edges of which are of 
a bright copper color. The head and thorax are brown mingled 
with gray ; and the hind wings and abdomen are light yellowish 
brown, with the lustre of satin. Its wings expand three quarters 
of an inch. This insect is readily distinguished from other moths 
by the large, oval, brown spot, edged with copper color, on the 

* " Gardener's Magazine," Vol. XJV., p. 234. 

t Page 398. See also some remarks on this insect in my " Discourse before the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in 1832," page 42. 

45 



354 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

hinder margin of each of the fore-wings. During the latter part 
of June and the month of July, these fruit-moths fly about apple- 
trees every evening, and lay their eggs on the young fruit. They 
do not puncture the apples, but they drop their eggs, one by one, 
in the eye or hollow at the blossom-end of the fruit, where the 
skin is most tender. They seem also to seek for early fruit 
rather than for the late kinds, which we find are not so apt to be 
wormy as the thin-skinned summer apples. The eggs begin to 
hatch in a few days after they are laid, and the little apple-worms 
or caterpillars produced from them immediately burrow into the 
apples, making their way gradually from the eye towards the 
core. Commonly only one worm will be found in the same 
apple ; and it is so small at first," that its presence can only be 
detected by the brownish powder it throws out in eating its way 
through the eye. The body of the young insect is of a whitish 
color ; its head is heart-shaped and black ; the top of the first 
ring or collar and of the last ring is also black ; and there are 
eight little blackish dots or warts, arranged in pairs, on each of 
the other rings. As it grows older its body becomes flesh- 
colored ; its head, the collar, and the top of the last ring, turn 
brown, and the dots are no longer to be seen. In the course 
of three weeks, or a httle more, it comes to its full size, and 
meanwhile has burrowed to the core and through the apple in 
various directions. To get rid of the refuse fragments of its 
food, it gnaws a round hole through the side of the apple, and 
thrusts them out of the opening. Through this hole also the 
insect makes its escape after the apple falls to the ground ; and 
the falling of the fruit is well known to be hastened by the in- 
jury it has received within, which generally causes it to ripen 
before its time. 

Soon after the half-grown apples drop, and sometimes while 
they are still hanging, the worms leave them and creep into 
chinks in the bark of the trees or into other sheltered places, 
which they hollow out with their teeth to suit their shape. Here 
each one spins for itself a cocoon or silken case, as thin, deli- 
cate, and white as tissue paper. Some of the apple-worms, 
probably the earliest, are said by Kollar to change to chrysalids 
immediately after their cocoons are made, and in a (ew days 



LEPIDOPTERA. . 355 

more tarn to moths, come out, and lay their eggs for a second 
generation of the worms ; and hence much fruit will be found to 
be worm-eaten in the autumn. Most of the insects, however, 
remain in their cocoons through the winter, and are not changed 
to moths till the following summer. The chrysalis is of a bright 
mahogany-brown color, and has, as usual, across each of the 
rings of its hind-body, two rows of prickles, by the help of which 
it forces its way through the cocoon before the moth comes 
forth. 

As the apple-worms instinctively leave the fruit soon after it 
falls from the trees, it will be proper to gather up all wind-fallen 
apples daily, and make such immediate use of them as will be 
sure to kill the insects, before they have time to escape. Mr. 
Burrelle says that if any old cloth is wound around or hung in 
the crotches of the trees, the apple-worms will conceal them- 
selves therein ; and by this means thousands of them may be 
obtained and destroyed, from the time when they first begin to 
leave the apples, until the fruit is gathered. By carefully scrap- 
ing off the loose and rugged bark of the trees, in the spring, 
many chrysalids will be destroyed ; and it has been said that 
the moths, when they are about laying their eggs, may be 
smothered or driven away, by the smoke of weeds burned 
under the trees. The worms, often found in summer pears, 
appear to be the same as those that affect apples, and are to be 
kept in check by the same means. 

6. TlNE^. 

The word moth was formerly used in a much more restricted 
sense than it now is. It was originally given to the caterpillars 
of certain insects, called Tine^e by Linnaeus, and well-known 
as the destroyers of clothhng and of other household stuffs. In 
this sense we find it used in our version of the Scriptures, and 
in the works of old English writers. It occurs, with very little 
change, in other languages also, and seems to have been derived 
from a word signifying to gnaw or to eat.* Nearly all the moth- 

* From the Gothic maten, to gnaw, and from matjan, to eat, we have the 
Anglo-Saxon word moth, as now used, and mat/ia, a maggot. 



356 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

worms, or caterpillars belonging to the tribe of Tineas, gnaw 
holes or winding paths in the substances wherein they live. 
Some of the fragments they devour, and the rest they fasten to- 
gether, with a few silken threads, so as to shelter or clothe their 
tender bodies. With these materials some of them make cylin- 
drical burrows, through which they can move freely, and carry 
on the work of destruction unseen ; and others, with the same, 
shape for themselves various kinds of pods or cases, large enough 
to cover their bodies entirely when they are at rest, and so light 
that they can bear them about on their backs, as snails do their 
shells. Some moth-worms are dark colored ; but most of them 
are of a dirty white color, with a brownish head, and a brown 
spot on the top of the first ring. They are either wholly naked, 
or have only a few^ short hairs thinly scattered over the surface 
of their bodies. They generally have sixteen legs. Some, how- 
ever, want the first pair of prop-legs, having only fourteen in all. 
They undergo their transformations in the burrows or cases that 
have served them for habitations, either with or without the addi- 
tional covering of a cocoon spun within their places of abode. 
The chrysalids are of a brown color, and are rather more slen- 
der than those of other moths. In the winged state they vary 
greatly both in form and color. They all agree, however, in 
having the wings long and narrow, and folded or wrapped 
around the body, more or less closely, when they are at rest. 
Their antennae are bristle-shaped, and very rarely feathered in 
either sex. Some of them have four feelers, others only two ; 
and the spiral tongue is short. Most of these winged moths 
are very small ; indeed, the least of the Lepidoptera belong to 
this tribe. They have been divided by some naturalists into 
two, and by others into three groups, namely, Crambidce, Ypono- 
meutadce, and Tineadce, the differences between which it is not 
necessary particularly to notice in this place. 

Some moth-worms burrow into leaves, and make winding pas- 
sages in the pulpy substance thereof, under the skin ; some bore 
into the stems of plants ; and a few are found only on the sur- 
face of leaves, or on roots. Living plants, however, form but a 
small part of the food of the Tineae, most of which subsist on 
other substances ; and, for this reason, they would have been 



LEPIDOPTERA. 357 

passed by without further notice, were it not for the depredations 
of certain species on some of our most valuable possessions. 
Most of these pests are foreign insects, and have been introduced 
into this country from abroad ; it will not, therefore, be in my 
power to offer any thing absolutely new about them. Neverthe- 
less, a (ew remarks on some of the most remarkable or destruc- 
tive of these moths may not be wholly useless or unacceptable to 
those persons for whom this treatise was particularly designed. 

The largest insects of this tribe belong to the group called 
CRAMBiDiE, or Crambians, among which the bee-moth or wax- 
moth is to be placed. This pernicious insect was well known 
to the ancients, and we find it mentioned, under the name of 
Tinea, in the works of Virgil and Columella,* old Roman writ- 
ers on husbandry. In the winged state, the male and female 
differ so much in size, color, and in the form of their fore-wings, 
that they were supposed, by Linnaeus and by some other natural- 
ists, to be different species, and accordingly received two differ- 
ent names. f To avoid confusion, it will be best to adopt the 
scientific name given to the bee-moth by Fabricius, who called 
it Galleria cereana, that is, the wax Galleria, because, in its cat- 
erpillar state, it eats beeswax. Doubtless it was first brought to 
this country, with the common hive-bee, from Europe, where it 
is very abundant, and does much mischief in hives. Very few 
of the Tinece exceed or even equal it in size. In its perfect or 
adult state it is a vpinged moth or miller, measuring, from the 
head to the tip of the closed wings, from five eighths to three 
quarters of an inch in length, and its wings expand from one 
inch and one tenth to one inch and four tenths. The feelers are 
two in number ; and the tongue is very short, and hardly visible. 
The fore-wings shut together flatly on the top of the back, slope 
steeply downwards at the -sides, and are turned up at the end, 
somewhat like the tail of a fowl. This resemblance probably 
suggested the name of the genus, Galleria, which seems to have 
been derived from the Latin word for a fowl. The male is of a 
dusty gray color ; his fore-wings are more or less glossed and 

* Virgil. ^ Georgic IV., line 246. Columella. Husbandry, Book IX. chap. 14. 
\ Tortrix cereana, the male ; Tinea mellonella, the female. 



358 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

streaked with purple-brown on the outer edge, th'ey have a (ew 
dark brown spots near the inner margin, and they are scolloped 
or notched inwardly at the end ; his hind-wings are light yellow- 
ish gray, with whitish fringes. The female is much larger than 
the male, and much darker colored ; her fore-wings are propor- 
tionally longer, not so deeply notched on the outer hind margin, 
and not so much turned up at the end ; they are more tinged 
with purple-brown, sprinkled with darker spots ; and the hind- 
wings are dirty or grayish white. There are two broods of these 
insects in the course of a year. Some winged moths of the first 
brood begin to appear towards the end of April, or early in 
May ; those of the second brood are most abundant in August ; 
but between these periods, and even later, others come to per- 
fection, and consequently some of them may be found during the 
greater part of the summer. By day they ren)ain quiet on the 
sides or in the crevices of the bee-house ; but, if disturbed at 
this time, they open their wings a little, and spring or glide 
swiftly away, so that it is very difficult to seize or to hold them. 
In the evening they take wing, when the bees are at rest, and 
hover around the hive, till, having found the door, they go in and 
lay their eggs. Those that are prevented by the crowd, or by 
any other cause, from getting within the hive, lay their eggs on 
the outside, or on the stand, and the little worm-like caterpillars 
hatched therefrom easily creep into the hive through the cracks, 
or gnaw a passage for themselves under the edges of it. These 
caterpillars, at first, are not thicker than a thread. They have 
sixteen legs. Their bodies are soft and tender, and of a yellow- 
ish white color, sprinkled with a few little brownish dots, from 
each of which proceeds a short hair ; their heads are brown and 
shelly, and there are two brown spots on the top of the first ring. 
Weak as they are, and unprovided with any natural means of 
defence, destined, too, to dwell in the midst of the populous 
hive, surrounded by vi^atchful and well-armed enemies, at whose 
expense they live, they are taught how to shield themselves 
against the vengeance of the bees, and pass safely and unseen in 
every direction through the waxen cells, which they break down 
and destroy. Beeswax is their only food, and they prefer the 
old to the new comb, and are always found most numerous in 



LEPIDOPTERA. 359 

the upper part of the hive, where the oldest honeycomb is lodg- 
ed. It is not a little wonderful, that these insects should be 
able to get any nourishment from wax, a substance which other 
animals cannot digest at all ; but they are created with an appe- 
tite for it, and with such extraordinary powers of digestion, that 
they thrive well upon this kind of food. As soon as they are 
hatched they begin to spin ; and each one makes for itself a 
tough silken tube, wherein it can easily turn around and move 
backwards or forwards at pleasure. During the day they remain 
concealed in their silken tubes ; but at night, when the bees can- 
not see them, they come partly out, and devour the wax within 
their reach. As they increase in size, they lengthen and enlarge 
their dwellings, and cover them on the outside with a coating of 
grains of wax mixed with their own castings, which resemble 
gunpowder. Protected by this coating from the stings of the 
bees, they work their way through the combs, gnaw them to 
pieces, and fill the hive with their filthy webs ; till at last the dis- 
couraged bees, whose diligence and skill are of no more use to 
them in contending with their unseen foes, than their superior 
size and powerful weapons, are compelled to abandon their per- 
ishing brood and their wasted stores, and leave the desolated hive 
to the sole possession of the miserable spoilers. These cater- 
pillars grow to the length of an inch or a little more, and come 
to their full size in about three weeks. They then spin their 
cocoons, which are strong silken pods, of an oblong oval shape, 
and about one inch in length, and are often clustered together in 
great numbers in the top of the hive. Some time afterwards, 
the insects in these cocoons change to chrysalids of a light brown 
color, rough on the back, and with an elevated dark brown line 
upon it from one end to the other. When this transformation 
happens in the autumn, the-insects remain without further change 
till the spring, and then burst open their cocoons, and come forth 
with wings. Those which become chrysalids in the early part 
of summer are transformed to winged moths fourteen days after- 
wards, and immediately pair, lay their eggs, and die. 

Bees sulFer most from the depredations of these insects in hot 
and dry summers. Strong and healthy swarms, provided with a 
constant supply of food near home, more often escape than small 



3o0 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

aiui weak ones. When the luoih-worms have estabhshed them- 
selves in a liive, tlieir presence is made known to us bv the Utile 
fragments of wax and the black grains scattered by them over 
the floor. Means should ilieu be taken, without delay, to dis- 
lodge the depredators and invigorate the swarm. These are so 
full}' described in Dr. Thacher's ** Treatise on the Management 
of Bees,'' and in other works on the same subject, that I shall 
limit myself to a few remarks, and refer the reader for further 
particulars to these works. Kollar states iliat there is but one 
sure method of clearing bee-hives of the moili, and iliis is to look 
for and destroy the caterpillars or moth-worms and the chrysa- 
lids ; and he advises thai the hives should be examined, for this 
purpose, once a week, and that all the webs and cocoons, with 
the insects in them, should be taken out and destroyed. At all 
events, the examination ought to be made every year, early in 
September, when the cocoons will be found in greater numbers 
than at any other time, and should be carefully removed and 
burned. Tlie winged moths are very fond of sweets ; and if shal- 
low vessels, containing a luixture of honey or sugar, with vinegar 
and water, are placed near tlie bee-house in the evening, the 
moths will get into tliem and be drowned. In this way great 
numbers may be caught every night. Several kinds of hives and 
bee-houses have been contrived and recommended, for the pur- 
pose of keeping out the bee-iuoih ; but it does not appear that any 
of them entirely supersede the necessity for the measures above 
recommended. 

The various kinds of destructive moths, found in houses, 
stores, barns, granaries, and mills, are mostly very small insects j 
the lai^est of them, when arrived at maturity, expanding their 
wings only about eight tenths of an inch. The ravages of some 
of these litde creatures are too well known to need a particular de- 
scription. Among them may be mentioned tlie clothes-moth 
{Tinea rcstianeUa)^ the tapestry or carpet-moth (T. lapttzella)^ 
the fur-moth (T. pc//ionc//a), the hair-moth (T*. m/JcZ/rt), and 
the grain-moth ( T. o-ra;je//<i'), with some odiers belonging to a 
group, which may be called Tineans (TiXEADi) ; also the pack- 
moth {AnacampsU sarcitcUa), which is very destructive to wool 
and fabrics made of this material, and the An2;oumois sraiu-moth 



LEPIDOPTERA. 361 

(Anacatnpsis cercalella)^ both of which are to bo inchided among 
the Yponomcutian.s. In the cabinet of the Boston Society of 
Natural History the cases, containing the large and beautiful col- 
lection of shells, were formerly lined with fine white flannel. In 
this some moths soon established themselves, multiplied very 
fast, and, in the course of a (ew years, did so much damage that 
it became necessary entirely to remove the niolh-caten linings. 
In their winged state these moths were of a light buff color, with 
the lustre of satin, and had a thick orange-colored tuft on the 
forehead ; the wings were deeply fringed, and the first pair were 
lance-shaped, and expanded rather more than half an inch. This 
species agrees very well with the description given, by the old 
naturalists, of the Tinea jlavifrontella^* or the orange-fronted 
Tinea, and with Wood's figure of Tinea destructor, the destroy- 
er. Should it prove to be difiJerent from these, it may be named 
the satin-bufF moth. Objects of natural history are very apt to 
be injured by another moth, closely resembling the foregoing, and 
differing from it chiefly in being somewhat smaller, and in having 
the hind-wings tinged with gray. Chocolate, as Reaumur has re- 
marked, is devoured by another Tinea, whose little silken cases 
are often seen between the cakes, and I have also found them in 
chocolate put up in tin cases. Other articles of food are also de- 
voured by some of these Tinea?, and even our books are not 
spared by them. 

Mention has been made of two kinds of grain-moths, and an 
account of them may be expected. Before entering upon their 
history it will be well to point out some of the peculiarities of the 
Tineans, and state what are the means to be employed for pre- 
serving clothes and other household stuffs from their attacks. 
The Tineans, in the winged state, have four short and slender 
feelers, a thick tuft on thejorehead, and very narrow wings, which 
are deeply fringed. They lay their eggs in the spring, in May 
and June, and die immediately afterwards. The eggs (according 
to Latreille and Duponchel, from whose works the following re- 
marks are chiefly extracted) are hatched in fifteen days, and the 
little whitish caterpillars or moth-worms proceeding therefrom im- 

* Not the Batla fiacijrontclla of the English entomologists. 

4G 



362 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

mediately begin to gnaw the substances within their reach, and 
cover themselves with the fragments, shaping them into little hol- 
low rolls and lining them with silk. They pass the summer with- 
in these rolls, some carrying them about on their backs as they 
move along, and others fastening them to the substance they are 
eating ; and they enlarge them from time to time by adding por- 
tions to the two open extremities, and by gores set into the sides, 
which they slit open for this purpose. Concealed within their 
movable cases, or in their lint-covered burrows, they carry on the 
work of destruction through the summer ; but in the autumn they 
leave ofF eating, make fast their habitations, and remain at rest 
and seemingly torpid through the winter. Early in the spring 
they change to chrysalids within their cases, and in about twenty 
days afterwards are transformed to winged moths, and come forth, 
and fly about in the evening, till they have paired and are ready to 
lay their eggs. They then contrive to slip through cracks into 
dark closets, chests, and drawers, under the edges of carpets, 
in the folds of curtains and of garments hanging up, and into va- 
rious other places, where they immediately lay the foundation for 
a new colony of destructive moth-worms. 

Early in June the prudent housekeeper will take care to beat 
up their quarters and put them to flight, or to disturb them so as 
to defeat their designs and destroy their eggs and young. With 
this view ward-robes, closets, drawers, and chests will be laid 
open, and emptied of their contents, and all woollen garments, 
and bedding, furs, feathers, carpets, curtains, and the like, will 
be removed and exposed to the air, and to the heat of the sun, 
for several hours together, and will not be put back in their pla- 
ces without a thorough brushing, beating, or shaking. By these 
means, the moths and their eggs will be dislodged and destroyed. 
In old houses, that are much infested by moths, the cracks in the 
floors, in the wainscot, around the walls and shelves of closets, 
and even in the furniture used for holding clothes, should be 
brushed over with spirits of turpentine. Sheets of paper 
sprinkled with spirits of turpentine, camphor in coarse powder, 
or leaves of tobacco, should be placed among the clothes, when 
they are laid aside for the summer. Furs, plumes, and other 
small articles, not in constant use, are best preserved by being 



LEPIDOPTERA. 363 

put, with a few tobacco leaves, or bits of camphor, into bags 
made of thick brown paper, and closely sewed or pasted up at 
the end. Chests of camphor-wood, red cedar, or of Spanish 
cedar, are found to be the best for keeping all articles from moths 
and other vermin. The cloth linings of carriages can be secured 
for ever from the attacks of moths by being v^^ashed or sponged on 
both sides with a solution of the corrosive sublimate of mercury 
in alcohol, made just strong enough not to leave a white stain on 
a black feather. Moths can be killed by fumigating the article 
containing them with tobacco smoke or with sulphur, or by shut- 
ting it in a tight vessel and then plunging the latter into boiling 
water, or exposing it to steam, for the space of fifteen minutes, 
or by putting it into an oven heated to about one hundred and 
fifty degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. 

Stored grain is exposed to much injury from the depredations 
of two little moths, in Europe, and is attacked in the same way, 
and apparently by the same insects, in this country. Not having 
had sufficient opportunity to examine these insects myself, I have 
been obliged to rely upon the accounts given by foreign writers, 
for most of the following particulars respecting their history. 

The European grain-moth (Tinea granella)^ in its perfected 
state, is a winged insect, between three and four tenths of an inch 
long from the head to the tip of its wings, and expands six tenths 
of an inch. It has a whitish tuft on its forehead ; its long and 
narrow wings cover its back like a sloping roof, are a little turned 
up behind, and are edged with a wide fringe. Its fore-wings are 
glossy like satin, and are marbled with white or gray, light brown, 
and dark brown or blackish spots, and there is always one dark 
square spot near the middle of the outer edge. Its hind-wings 
are blackish. Some of these winged moths appear in May, oth- 
ers in July and August, at which times they lay their eggs ; for 
there are two broods of them in the course of the year. The 
young from the first laid eggs come to their growth and finish 
their transformations in six weeks or two months ; the others live 
through the winter, and turn to winged moths in the following 
spring. The young moth-worms do not burrow into the grain, 
as has been asserted by some writers, who seem to have con- 
founded them with the Angoumois grain-worms ; but, as soon as 



364 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

they are hatched, they begin to gnaw the grain and cover them- 
selves with the fragments, which they Hne with a silken web. As 
they increase in size they fasten together several grains with their 
webs, so as to make a larger cavity, wherein they live. After a 
while, becoming uneasy in their confined habitations, they come 
out, and wander over the grain, spinning their threads as they go, 
till they have found a suitable place wherein to make their co- 
coons. Thus, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, all of which they 
attack, will be found full of lumps of grains cemented together by 
these corn-worms, as they are sometimes called ; and when they 
are very numerous, the whole surface of the grain in the bin will 
be covered with a thick crust of webs and of adhering grains. 
These destructive corn-worms are really soft and naked caterpil- 
lars, of a cyhndrical shape, tapering a little at each end, and are 
provided with sixteen legs, the first three pairs of which are coni- 
cal and jointed, and the others fleshy and wart-like. "When fully 
grown, they measure four or five tenths of an inch in length, and are 
of a light ochre or buff color, with a reddish head. When about 
six weeks old they leave the grain, and get into cracks, or around 
the sides of corn-bins, and each one then makes itself a little oval 
pod or cocoon, about as large as a grain of wheat. The insects 
of the first brood, as before said, come out of their cocoons, in 
the winged form, in July and August, and lay their eggs for 
another brood: the others remain unchanged in their cocoons, 
through the winter, and take the chrysalis form in March or April 
following. Three weeks afterwards, the shining brown chrysalis 
forces itself part way out of the cocoon, by the help of some little 
sharp points on its tail, and bursts open at the other end, so as to 
allow the moth therein confined to come forth. 

The foregoing account will probably enable the readers of this 
essay to determine whether these destructive insects are found in 
our own country. From various statements, deficient however 
in exactness, that have appeared in some of our agricultural jour- 
nals, I am led to think that this corn-moth, or an insect exactly 
like it in its habits, prevails in all parts of the country, and that it 
has generally been mistaken for the grain-weevil, which it far sur- 
passes in its devastations. Many years ago I remember to have 
seen oats and shelled corn (maize) affected in the way above de- 



LEPIDOPTERA. 365 

scribed, and have observed seed-corn, hanging in the ears, to 
have been attacked by insects of this kind, the empty chrysahds 
of which remained sticking between the kernels ; but, for some 
time past, no opportunity for further investigation has offered 
itself. 

There is another grain-moth, which, at various times, has been 
found to be more destructive in granaries, in some provinces of 
France, than the preceding kind. It is the Angoumois moth 
(Anacampsisl cerealella), an insect evidently belonging to the 
family of yp gnome utad^, or Yponomeutians. The winged moths 
of this group have only two visible feelers, and these are gener- 
ally long, slender, and curved over their heads. Their narrow 
wings most often overlap each other, and cover their backs hori- 
zontally when shut. The Angoumois grain-moth probably be- 
longs to the modern genus Anacampsis, a word derived from 
the Greek, and signifying recurved, in allusion to the direction of 
the feelers of the moths. It is stated in the " Introduction to 
Entomology," * by the Rev. Mr. Kirby and Mr. Spence, that 
the insect under consideration is not yet named. This, however, 
is a mistake ; for it was named Alucita cerealella, by Olivier, f 
as long ago as the year 1789. Olivier's name for it appears also 
to have been overlooked by Latreille, who has given it that of 
(Ecophora granella-X Moreover, the writers of the " Introduc- 
tion" have extracted, from the works of Reaumur §, an account 
of the habits of this insect, which they call Tinea Hordei and 
Ypsolophus granellus, || without seeming to be aware that it is the 
same as the Angoumois moth. In the year 1768, Colonel Lan- 
don Carter, of Sabine Hall, Virginia, communicated to the 
American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, some inter- 
esting " Observations concerning the Fly-weevil that destroys 
wheat." These were prii>ted in the first volume IF of the "Trans- 

* Fifth edition, Vol. I., p. 172. 

t " Encyclopedie Methodique. Hist, Nat. Insectes," Vol. IV., p. 121. See 
also Guerin's edition of Tigny's " Histoire Nat. des Insectes," Vol. IX., p. 301. 
t Cuvier's " Regne Animal," 2d. edition. 
§ " Memoires," II., p. 4SG. 
II " Introduction to Entomology," Vol. I., p. 174. 
TI Page 274. 



366 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

actions" of the Society, and were followed by some remarks on 
the subject by " the Committee of Husbandry." It is highly prob- 
able that this fly-weevil is no other than the destructive Angou- 
mois grain-moth ; for Colonel Carter's account of it, though de- 
ficient in some particulars, agrees essentially with what has been 
pubhshed respecting the European insect. Mr. E. C. Herrick 
has recently sent to me, from New Haven, Connecticut, some 
wheat, that has been eaten by moths precisely in the same way 
as grain is attacked by the Angoumois grain-moth ; and a gentle- 
man to whom this moth-eaten wheat was shown, informed me that 
he had seen grain thus affected in Maine. Unfortunately the in- 
sects contained in this wheat were dead when received, having 
perished in the chrysalis state; had they lived to finish their trans- 
formations, I have good reason to think that they would have 
proved to be identical with the Angoumois moths. The follow- 
ing particulars respecting the latter are chiefly gathered from 
Reaumur's " Memoires," and from a work by Duhamel du Mon- 
ceau and Tillet, * who were commissioned by the Academy of 
Sciences of Paris, in the year 1760, to inquire into the nature of 
the insect, on account of its ravages in Angoumois, a part of 
France where it had long been known, and had multiplied to an 
alarming extent. The Angoumois moth, or Anacampsis cereal- 
ella, in its perfected state, is a four-winged insect, about three 
eighths of an inch long, when its wings are shut. It has a pair of 
tapering curved feelers, turned over its head. Its upper wings 
are narrow, of a light brown color, without spots, and have the 
lustre of satin ; they cover the body horizontally above, but droop 
a little at the sides. The lower wings and the rest of the body 
are ash-colored. This moth lays its eggs, which vary in number 
from sixty to ninety, in clusters, on the ears of wheat, rye, and 
barley, most often while these plants are growing in the field, and 
the ears are young and tender ; sometimes also on stored grain in 
the autumn. Hence it appears that they breed twice a year; the 
insects from the eggs laid in the early part of summer, coming to 



*"Histoire d'un Insecte qui devore les grains de I'Angouniois." 12mo. Paris. 
1762. See also " Histoire de I'Academie Royale des Sciences," Annee 1761, p. 
66, and " Memoires," p. 289, 4to. Paris, 1763. 



LEPIDOPTERA. 367 

perfection and providing for another brood of moth-worms in the 
autumn. The httle worm-hke caterpillars, as soon as they are 
hatched, disperse, and each one selects a single grain, into which 
it burrows immediately at the most tender part, and remains con- 
cealed therein after the grain is harvested. It devours the mealy 
substance within the hull ; and this destruction goes on so secret- 
ly, that it can only be detected by the softness of the grain or the 
loss of its weight. When fully grown this caterpillar is not more 
than one fifth of an inch long. It is of a white color, with a 
brownish head ; and it has six small jointed legs, and ten ex- 
tremely small wart-like proplegs. Duhamel has represented it 
as having two little horns just behind the head, and two short 
bristles at the end of its tapering body. Plaving eaten out the 
heart of the grain, which is just enough for all its wants, it spins 
a silken web or curtain to divide the hollow, lengthwise, into two 
unequal parts, the smaller containing the rejected fragments of its 
food, and the larger cavity serving instead of a cocoon, wherein 
the insect undergoes its transformations. Before turning to a 
chrysalis it gnaws a small hole nearly or quite through the hull, 
and sometimes also through the chaffy covering of the grain, 
through which it can make its escape easily when it becomes a 
winged moth. The insects of the first, or summer brood, come 
to maturity in about three weeks, remain but a short time in the 
chrysalis state, and turn to winged moths in the autumn, and at 
this time may be found, in the evening, in great numbers, laying 
their eggs on the grain stored in barns and granaries. The moth- 
worms of the second brood remain in the grain through the win- 
ter, and do not change to winged insects till the following sum- 
mer, when they come out, fly into the fields in the night, and lay 
their eggs on the young ears of the growing grain. When dam- 
aged grain is sown it conies up very thin ; the infected kernels 
never sprout, but the insects lodged in them remain alive, finish 
their transformations in the field, and in due time come out of 
the ground in the winged form. 

It has been proved by experience that the ravages of the two 
kinds of grain-moths, whose history has been now given, can be ef- 
fectually checked by drying the damaged grain in an oven or kiln ; 
and that a heat of one hundred and sixty-seven degrees, by Fah- 



368 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

renheit's thermometer, continued during twelve hours, will kill 
the insects in all their forms. Indeed the heat may be reduced 
to one hundred and four degrees, with the same effect, but the 
grain must then be exposed to it for the space of two days. The 
other means, that have been employed for the preservation of 
grain from these destructive moths, it is unnecessary to describe ; 
they are probably well known to most of our farmers and millers, 
and are rarely so effectual as the process above mentioned. 

7. Feather-winged Moths. Alucitm. 

The last tribe of Lepidopterous insects, remaining to be no- 
ticed, contains the AlucitjE of Linnaeus, or feather-winged 
moths, called Pterophorid.e by the French naturalists. These 
moths are easily known by their wings being divided lengthwise 
into narrow, fringed branches, resembling feathers. The fore- 
wings in the genus Pterophorus are split, nearly half way, into 
two, and the hind-wings are divided, to the shoulder-joint, into 
three feathers; and each of the wings, in Alucita, consists of six 
feathers, connected only at the joint. The antennae of these 
moths are slender and tapering ; the tongue is long ; the feelers 
are two in number, and of moderate length ; and the body and 
legs are very long and slender. When at rest their wings do not 
cover the body, but stand out from it on each side, not spread 
however, but folded together like a fan, so that only the outer 
part of each of the fore-wings is visible. They fly slowly and 
feebly, some of them by day, and others only at night, and, when 
on the wing, they somewhat resemble the long-legged gnats. 
Their caterpillars are rather short and thick, are clothed with a 
few hairs, and have sixteen short legs. Most of them live on the 
leaves of low or herbaceous plants, and, when about to change to 
chrysalids, they fasten themselves by the hind-feet and by a loop 
over the back, like the Lycaenians. Those w^hich belong to the 
genus Alucita are said to live in buds, and undergo their transfor- 
mations in thin, transparent cocoons. The number of species in 
this tribe is small ; and those that are found in this country are so 
few, and of so litlle consequence, in an economical point of view, 
that a particular description of them will not be necessary in this 
treatise. 



HYMENOPTERA. 369 



HYMENOPTERA. 

Stingers, and Piercers. — Habits of some of the IIvmenoptera. — Saw- 
Flies, and Slugs. Elm Saw-Fly. Fir Saw-Fly. Vine Saw-Fly. Rose- 
bush Slug. Pear-tree Slug. — Horn-tailed Wood-Wasps. — Gall-Flies. 

Bees, wasps, ants, saw-flies, and ichneumon-flies, of many 
different kinds, together with other insects, unknown by any 
common names in the Enghsh language, belong to the order 
Hymenoptera. Their wings are four in number, are traversed 
by a few, branching veins, and are more or less transparent, or of 
a thin and filmy texture, as expressed by the name of the order, 
which signifies membranaceous wings. They fly swiftly, and are 
able to keep on the wing much longer than any other insects, 
because their bodies are light, and compact, and their wings very 
thin, narrow, and withal very strong. They have four nippers 
or jaws; the upper pair being horny, stout, and fitted for biting 
or cutting ; the lower are longer and softer, and, with the lower 
lip, which they cover, form a kind of beak or sucker. Their 
antennae vary in form and length ; but are most often cylindrical, 
and of equal thickness to the end. The males have no weapons 
of offence or defence except their jaws. The females are armed 
with a venomous sting, concealed within the end of the hind- 
body, or are provided with a piercer, of some sort, for boring 
or sawing the holes wherein their eggs are deposited. Hence 
the insects of this order may be divided into two groups. Sting- 
ers, and Piercers. Though both of them undergo a complete 
transformation in coming to maturity, they differ from each other 
in the early states of their existence. The young of all the 
stinging Hymenoptera ai=e soft, white, and maggot-shaped, and 
are without legs ; some of those of the Piercers have the same 
form, but the others more nearly resemble grubs and caterpillars, 
having a horny head, and six, jointed legs, and some of them nu- 
merous, fleshy, proplegs, besides. The latter, when food fails 
them in one place, are able to creep to another, and can look out 
for themselves a proper place of shelter, wherein to go through 
with their transformations. The others are exceedingly helpless, 
47 



370 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and depend wholly upon the instinctive foresight of their parents, 
or the daily care of attentive nurses, for their food and habita- 
tions. When fully grown, nearly all of these young insects spin 
oblong oval cocoons, wherein they change to chrysalids, and 
finally to winged insects. A few, however, never obtain wings 
in the adult state ; but these are mostly certain neuter and female 
ants, the males of which possess wings. With the exception of 
the white ants, belonging to another order, it is only among Hy- 
menopterous insects that we find certain individuals constantly 
barren, and hence called neuters. These form the principal part 
of those communities of bees, of wasps, and of ants, that unite 
in making a habitation for the whole swarm, and in providing a 
stock of provisions for their own use, and for that of their help- 
less brood ; and nearly or quite all the labor falls upon these in- 
dustrious neuters, whose care and affection for the young, which 
they foster and sheker, could not be greater were they their own 
offspring. 

Hymenopterous insects love the light of the sun ; they take 
wing only during the daytime, and remain at rest in the night, and 
in dull and wet weather. They excel all other insects in the 
number and variety of their instincts, which are wonderfully dis- 
played in the methods employed by them in providing for the 
comfort and the future wants of their offspring. In the introduc- 
tory chapter some remarks have already been made on their hab- 
its and economy ; and the limits of this essay will not allow me 
now to enlarge upon them. I shall not, therefore, attempt to 
show how admirably the Hymenoptera are fitted, in the formation 
of all their parts, for their appointed tasks. If any of my read- 
ers are curious to learn this, and to witness for themselves the 
various arts, resources, and contrivances resorted to by these in- 
sects, let them go abroad in the summer, and watch them during 
their labors. They will then see the saw-fly making holes in 
leaves with her double key-hole saws, and the horn-tail boring 
with her auger into the solid trunks of trees ; — they will not fail 
to observe and admire the untiring scrutiny of the ichneumon- 
flies, those little busy-bodies, for ever on the alert, and prying 
into every place to find the lurking caterpillar, grub, or maggot, 
wherein to thrust their eggs ; — the curious swellings produced 



HYMENOPTERA. 371 

by the gall-flies, and inhabited by their young; — the clay cells of 
the mud-wasp, plastered against the walls of our houses, each 
one containing a single egg, together with a large number of liv- 
ing spiders, caught and imprisoned therein solely for the use of 
the little mason's young, which thus have constantly before them 
an ample supply of fresh provisions ; — the holes of the stump- 
wasp, stored with hundreds of horse-flies for the same purpose ; 
— the skill of the leaf-cutter bee in cutting out the semicircular 
pieces of leaves for her patchwork nest; — the thimble-shaped 
cells of the ground-bee, hidden, in clusters, under some loose 
stone in the fields, made of little fragments of tempered clay, 
and stored with bee-bread, the work of many weeks for the indus- 
trious laborer ; — the waxen cells made by the honey-bee, with- 
out any teaching, upon purely mathematical principles, measured 
only with her antennas, and wrought with her jaws and tongue ; — 
the water-tight nests of the hornet and wasp, natural paper-makers 
from the beginning of time, who are not obliged to use rags or 
ropes in the formation of their durable paper combs, but have 
applied to this purpose fibres of wood, a material that the art of 
man has not yet been able to manufacture into paper ; — the her- 
culean labors of ants in throwing up their hillocks, or mining their 
galleries, compared wherewith, if the small size of the laborers 
be taken into account, the efforts of man in his proudest monu- 
ments, his pyramids and his catacombs, dwindle into insignifi- 
cance. These are only a few of the objects deserving of notice 
among the insects of this order ; many others might be mentioned, 
that would lead us to observe with what consummate skill these 
little creatures have been fashioned, and how richly they have 
been endowed with instincts, that never fail them in providing for 
their own welfare, and that of their future progeny. 

Comparatively speaking, there are not many of the Hymen- 
optera which are actually or seriously injurious to vegetation. 
Those which 1 propose now to describe are not provided with 
venomous stings, and, consequently, are to be included among 
the Piercers. 

Such are the saw-flies (Tenthredinid^), insects that are 
found on the leaves of plants, and live almost entirely on vege- 
table food. They are the least active of the Hymenoptera, are 



372 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

sluggish in their habits, fly heavily and but little, and do not at- 
tempt to escape when touched. Most of them are rather short 
and somewhat flattened. They have a broad head, which, seen 
from above, appears transversely square. The hind-body is not 
narrowed to a point where it joins the thorax, but is as broad as 
the latter, and is closely united to it. The antennae are generally 
short ; but they vary much in form ; in many species they are 
thread-like and slightly tapering ; in some, thickened or knobbed 
at the end ; more rarely they end suddenly with a few very small 
joints, much more slender than the rest ; they are feathered in 
some males, and notched in the other sex ; and sometimes they 
are forked, or divided into long branches. Their wings cross 
and overlap each other, and cover the back horizontally when 
closed. But the most striking peculiarity of these insects con- 
sists in the double saws wherewith the females are provided. 
These are lodged in a deep chink under the hinder part of the 
body, like the blade of a penknife in its handle, and are covered 
by two, narrow, scabbard-like pieces. The saws are two in num- 
ber, placed side by side, with their ends directed backwards, and 
are so hinged to the under-side of the body that they can be 
withdrawn from the chink, and moved up and down when in use. 
They vary in their form, and in the shape of their teeth, in dif- 
ferent kinds of saw-flies ; but they generally curve upwards and 
taper towards the end, and are toothed along the lower or convex 
edges. Each of the saws, like a carpenter's fine saw, has a back 
to steady it ; the blade, however, is not fastened to the back, but 
slides backwards and forwards upon it. Moreover, the saw-blade 
is not only toothed on the edge, but is covered, on one side, with 
transverse rows of very fine teeth, giving to it the power of a 
rasp, as well as that of a saw. 

The female saw-flies use these ingeniously contrived tools to 
saw little slits in the stems and leaves of plants, wherein they af- 
terwards drop their eggs. Some, it appears, lay their eggs in 
fruits ; for Mr. Westwood discovered their young within apples 
that had fallen from the trees before they had grown to the size of 
walnuts. The wounds made in plants by some kinds of saw- 
flies swell, and produce galls or knobs, that serve for habitations 
and for food to their young. The eggs, themselves, of all these 



HYMENOPTERA. 373 

flies, are found to grow, and increase to twice their former size 
after they are laid, probably by absorbing the sap of the plant 
through their thin shells. 

Most of the larvae or young of the saw-flies strikingly resem- 
ble caterpillars, being usually of a cylindrical form, of a greenish 
color, and having several pairs of legs. Hence they are some- 
times called false caterpillars. With the exception of such as 
belong to the genera Lyda and Cephus^ in which the legs are 
only six, and the proplegs are entirely wanting, these false cater- 
pillars have a greater number of legs than true caterpillars, being 
provided with from eighteen to twenty-two ; but their proplegs 
have not the numerous little hooks that arm those of caterpillars. 
They have the means of spinning silk from their lower lips, but 
not often in any great quantity. They are mostly naked and 
without hairs ; a few have forked prickles on their backs ; some 
are covered with a white flaky substance, that easily rubs off; 
and others have a dark colored slimy skin, which has caused them 
to be called slugs or slug-worms. They shed their skins about 
four times, and, after the last moulting, often materially change in 
appearance. Not only do these insects resemble caterpillars in 
their forms, but they have nearly the same habits. They are 
generally found on the leaves of plants, which they devour. 
Many kinds are altogether solitary ; a few live together in swarms, 
under silken webs, which they spin for a common place of shelter ; 
others are found -also in swarms, but without any webs over them, 
and, when disturbed, they throw up their heads and tails, in a 
very odd way ; some roll up leaves, and live in the hollow thus 
formed, like the Tortrices ; others make portable cases of bits 
of leaves, which they carry about on their backs, like the Tincce ; 
certain kinds live within the stems of plants, and devour the pith ; 
and wheat, in Europe, is said to suffer considerable injury from 
internal feeders (Cephus pijgmcBUs) of this kind. When fully 
grown, most of them go into the ground, and enclose themselves 
in thin silken cocoons, of an oblong oval shape, coated with 
grains of earth. Some make much thicker cocoons, in texture 
resembling parchment, and fasten them to the plants on which 
they live^ or conceal them in crevices, or under leaves and stones 
on the ground. They generally remain for a long time unchanged 



374 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

in their cocoons, most of them during the winter ; are trans- 
formed to chrysahds, of a whitish color, in the spring, and come 
out in the winged form soon afterwards. Of some kinds there 
are two broods in the course of the summer, the false caterpillars 
of the first brood coming to their growth, and passing through all 
their transformations, within six or seven weeks from their first 
appearance. 

The names of above sixty native species of saw-flies may be 
found in my "Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts." 
Some of these are very interesting in their appearance and hab- 
its in the caterpillar state. In what follows an account will be 
given of one of the largest species, and of some smaller kinds, 
that have been found very injurious to cultivated plants. 

Our largest saw-fly belongs to the genus Cimbex. This name 
was originally given by the Greeks to certain insects resembling 
bees and wasps, but not producing honey. It therefore applies 
very well to some kinds of saw-flies, such as the female of this 
species, which, at first sight, might be mistaken for a hornet. 
Her head and thorax are shining black. Her hind-body is oval, 
and of a steel blue or deep violet color, with three or four, 
oval, yellowish spots on each side. Her antennae are bufF-colored, 
except at the base, where they are dusky ; they are short, and 
end with an egg-shaped knob. Her wings are smoky brown, and 
semitransparent. Her legs are blue-black, and her feet pale yel- 
low. The length of her body varies from three quarters to seven 
eighths of an inch, and her wings expand an inch and three quar- 
ters or more. In the manuscript lectures of the late Professor 
Peck, she is called Cimbex Ulmi, because she inhabits the elm. 
The male is the Cimbex Americana of Dr. Leach, and differs so 
much from the female, that it might be taken for a different species. 
His body is longer and narrower than that of the female, and 
wants the white spots on the sides ; and there is a transverse, oval 
hole, filled with a whitish film, behind the thorax, which is hard- 
ly perceptible in the other sex. His hind-legs are very thick ; 
the shins are bowed, and hairy within ; and the first joint of his 
feet ends with a stout hook, curved inwards. He often measures 
an inch in length, and his wings expand about two inches. 
These insects appear from the latter part of May to the middle 



HYMENOPTEKA. 375 

of June, during which period the female lays her eggs upon the 
common American elm, the leaves whereof are the food of her 
young. The latter come to their growth in August, and then 
measure from one inch and a half to two inches in length. They 
are rather thick, and nearly cylindrical in forn), and have twenty- 
two legs, or a pair to every ring except the fourth. They have 
a firm, rough, skin, of a pale greenish yellow color, covered with 
numerous transverse wrinkles, with a black stripe, consisting of 
two narrow black lines, along the top of the back, from the head 
to the tail ; and their spiracles, or breathing-holes, are also black. 
When at rest, they lie on their sides, curled up in a spiral form, 
and, in this position, look not much unlike some kinds of cockle 
or snail shells. Like all the false caterpillars of the genus Cim- 
bex, this insect, when handled or disturbed, betrays its fears or 
its displeasure by spirting out a watery fluid from certain little 
pores situated on the sides of its body just above its spiracles. 
After its feeding state is over, it crawls down from the tree to 
the ground, and conceals itself under fallen leaves or other rub- 
bish, and there makes an oblong oval, brown cocoon, very close- 
ly woven, as tough as parchment, and about an inch in length. 
In this the false caterpillar remains unchanged throughout the 
winter, and is not transformed to a chrysalis till the following 
spring. At length the insect bursts its chrysalis skin, and, by 
pushing against the end of its cocoon, forces off a little circular 
piece like a lid, and through the opening thus made it comes forth 
in its winged form. 

For some years past many of the fir-trees, cultivated for or- 
nament, in this vicinity, have been attacked by swarms of false 
caterpillars, and, in some instances that have fallen under my no- 
tice, have been nearly stripped of their leaves every summer, and 
in consequence thereof have been checked in their growth, and 
now seem to be in a sickly condition. These destructive insects 
agree in their habits and in their general appearance, in all their 
states, with the pine and fir saw-flies, described by Kollar,* by 
whose ravages whole forests of these trees have been destroyed 
in some parts of Germany. It is probable, however, that the 

*" Treatise," pages 340 and 347. 



370 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

American fir saw-flies are not identical with those of Europe, as 
they differ from them rather too much to have originated from the 
same stock ; neither do they sufficiently agree with Dr. Leach's 
descriptions of Lophyrus Americanus, Abbotii, compar, &c. ; 
and, therefore, I propose to name this apparently undescribed 
species Lophyrus Abietis, the Lophyrus of the fir-tree. The 
following is a description of the insect in its winged state. The 
two sexes differ very much from each other in size and color, 
and still more remarkably in the form of their antennae. The 
male is the smallest, measures one quarter of an inch in length, 
and expands his wings about two fifths of an inch. His body is 
black above, and brown beneath ; his wings are transparent, with 
changeable tints of rose-red, green, and yellow ; and his legs 
are wholly of a dirty leather-yellow color. His antennae resem- 
ble very short, black feathers, wide at the end, and narrowed to a 
point, and are curled inwards on each edge, so as to appear hol- 
low. The genus Lophyrus derives its name from the plume-like 
crest on the heads of the male insects. The body of the female 
is about three tenths of an inch long, and her wings expand half 
an inch or more. She is of a yellowish brown color above, with 
a short blackish stripe on each side of the middle of the thorax ; 
her body beneath and her legs are paler, or of a dirty leather- 
yellow color ; and her wings resemble those of the male. Her 
antennae are short, taper to a point, consist of nineteen joints, and 
are toothed on one side like a saw. My specimens of this kind 
of saw-fly, which were raised from the caterpillars in the summer 
of 1838, came out of their cocoons towards the end of July in 
the same year ; but I have also found them on pines and firs early 
in May. The European pine saw-flies lay their eggs in slits 
which they make with their saws in the edges of the leaves ; and 
it is probable that our fir saw-flies proceed in the same way. In 
June and July the false caterpillars of the latter may be found on 
firs ; and, according to notes made by me many years ago, the 
same insects, or some very much like them, were observed on 
the leaves of the pitch-pine also. They are social in their habits, 
living together in considerable swarms, and so thick that some- 
times two may be seen feeding together on the same leaf, and sit- 
ting opposite to each other. In order to lay hold of the leaf 



HYMENOPTERA. 377 

more firmly they curl the hinder part of the body around it ; and, 
if they are disturbed, they throw up their heads and tails with a 
jerking motion. When fully grown, they are from five to six 
tenths of an inch in length ; they are nearly cylindrical in form, 
thickest before the middle, and tapering behind, and have twenty- 
two legs. The head, and the first three pairs of legs, are black. 
The body is of a pale and dirty green color above, with a light 
stripe along the top of the back, separating two of a dai ker green 
color ; there are two dark green stripes on each side of the body ; 
and the belly and proplegs are yellowish. When young, the two 
stripes on the back are much darker, and those on the sides are 
nearly black. The skin, though covered with very fine trans- 
verse wrinkles, is not rough, and, with a magnifying glass, a few 
short hairs may be seen scattered over it. After the last moult- 
ing their color fades, and they become almost yellow. The 
greater part of them then suddenly leave the trees, either by trav- 
elling down the trunks, or by falling from the branches to the 
ground. A few, either from weakness or from some other cause, 
remain on the trees, make their cocoons among the leaves, and 
rarely finish their transformations, most of them perishing from the 
internal attacks of ichneumon-grubs. Some creep into cracks 
in fences and into other crevices ; but most of those which reach 
the ground bury themselves under decayed leaves, or among the 
roots of the grass, and, in such secure places, make their co- 
coons. The latter are oblong oval cases, of tough grayish silk, 
and measure nearly three tenths of an inch in length. In due 
time the insects change to saw-flies, and come out of their co- 
coons, one end whereof separates, like a lid, to allow of their 
escape. Although some of them are found to finish their trans- 
formations in August, it is probable that the greater part of them 
remain unchanged in the ground till the following spring. 

No means for the destruction of the caterpillars of the fir saw- 
fly have been tried here, except showering them with soap-suds, 
and with solutions of whale-oil soap, which has been found ef- 
fectual. They may also be shaken off or beaten from the trees, 
early in the morning, when they are torpid and easily fall, and 
may be collected in sheets, and be burned or given to swine. 
For other means to check their depredations the reader may con- 
48 



37S LNSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

suit the articles on the pine and fir saw-flies of Europe, contained 
in KoUar's " Treatise." 

The following account of a kind of saw-fly which attacks the 
grape-vine is chiefly extracted from my " Discourse before the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in 1832," where the in- 
sect is named Selandria Vitis. The saw-fly of the vine is of a 
jet-black color, except the upper side of the thorax, which is 
red, and the fore-legs and under-side of the other legs, which are 
pale yellow or whitish. The wings are semitransparent, of a 
smoky color, with dark brown veins. The body of the female 
measures one quarter of an inch in length, that of the male is 
somewhat shorter. These flies rise from the ground in the 
spring, not all at one time, but at irregular intervals, and lay their 
eggs on the lower side of the terminal leaves of the vine. In 
the month of July the false caterpillars, hatched from these eggs, 
may be seen on the leaves, in little swarms, of various ages, some 
very small, and others fully grown. They feed in company, side 
by side, beneath the leaves, each swarm or fraternity consisting of 
a dozen or more individuals, and they preserve their ranks with a 
surprising degree of regularity- Beginning at the edge they eat 
the whole of the leaf to the stalk, and then go to another, which 
in like manner they devour, and thus proceed, from leaf to leaf, 
down the branch, till they have grown to their full size. They 
then average five eighths of an inch in length, are somewhat 
slender and tapering behind, and thickest before the middle. 
They have twenty-two legs. The head and the tip of the tail 
are black ; the body, above, is light green, paler before and be- 
hind, with two transverse rows of minute black points across 
each ring ; and the lower side of the body is yellowish. After 
their last moulting they become almost entirely yellow, and then 
leave the vine, burrow in the ground, and form for themselves 
small oval cells of earth, which they line with a slight silken film. 
In about a fortnight after going into the ground, having in the 
mean time passed through the chrysalis state, they come out of 
their earthen cells, take wing, pair, and lay their eggs for a sec- 
ond brood. The young of the second brood are not transformed 
to flies until the following spring, but remain at rest in their co- 
coons in the ground through the winter. For some years pre- 



HYMENOPTERA. 379 

vious to the publication of my " Discourse," I observed that 
these insects annually increased in number, and, in the year 
1832, they had become so numerous and destructive that many 
vines were entirely stripped of their leaves by them. Whether 
the remedies then proposed by me, or any other means, have 
tended to diminish their numbers, or to keep them in check, I 
have not been able to ascertain, and have had no further oppor- 
tunity for making observations on the insects themselves. At 
that time, air-slacked lime, which was found to be fatal to these 
false caterpillars of the vine, was advised to be dusted upon them, 
and strewed also upon the ground under the vines, to insure the 
destruction of such of the insects as might fall. A solution of 
one pound of common hard soap in five or six gallons of soft 
water, is used by English gardeners to destroy the young of the 
gooseberry saw-fly ; and the same was recommended to be tried 
upon the insects under consideration. 

All the young of the saw-flies do not so closely resemble cat- 
erpillars as the preceding ; some of them, as has already been 
stated, have the form of slugs or naked snails. Of this descrip- 
tion is the kind called the slug-worm in this country, and the 
slimy grub of the pear-tree in Europe. So difl^erent are these 
from the other false caterpillars, that they would not be suspected 
to belong to the same family. Their relationship becomes evi- 
dent, however, when they have finished their transformations ; 
and accordingly we find that the saw-flies of our slug-worms and 
those of the vine are so much alike in form and structure, that 
they are both included in the same genus. Moreover, there are 
certain false caterpillars intermediate in their forms and appear- 
ance between the slimy and slug-like kinds and those that more 
nearly resemble the true caterpillars ; thus admirably illustrating 
the truth of the remark, that nature proceeds not with abrupt or 
unequal steps ; * or, in other words, that amidst the immense 
variety of living forms, wherewith this earth has been peopled, 
there is a regular gradation and connexion, which, in particular 
cases, if we fail to discover, it is rather to be attributed to our own 
ignorance and short-sightedness than to any want of harmony and 

* Nalurasaltus non facit. LiniiEeus. Syst, Nat. I. II. 



380 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

regularity in the plan of the Creator. In considering the resem- 
blances of species, we cannot fail to admire the care that has 
been taken, by almost insensible shades of difference among 
them, or by peculiar circumstances controlling their distribution, 
their habits of life, and their choice of food, to prevent them 
from commingling, whereby each species is made to preserve for 
ever its individual identity. 

The saw-fly of the rose, which, as it does not seem to have 
been described before, may be called Selandria Rosce, from its 
favorite plant, so nearly resembles the slug-worm saw-fly as not 
to be distinguished therefrom except by a practised observer. It 
is also very much like Selandria barda^ Vitis, and pygmcca, but 
has not the red thorax of these three closely allied species. It is 
of a deep and shining black color. The first two pairs of legs 
are brownish gray or dirty white, except the thighs, which are 
almost entirely black. The hind-legs are black, with whitish 
knees. The wings are smoky, and transparent, with dark brown 
veins, and a brown spot near the middle of the edge of the first 
pair. The body of the male is a little more than three twentieths 
of an inch long, that of the female one fifth of an inch or more, 
and the wings expand nearly or quite two fifths of an inch. 
These saw-flies come out of the ground, at various times, be- 
tween the twentieth of May and the middle of June, during which 
period they pair and lay their eggs. The females do not fly much, 
and may be seen, during most of the day, resting on the leaves ; 
and, when touched, they draw up their legs, and fall to the ground. 
The males are more active, fly from one rose-bush to another, 
and hover around their sluggish partners. The latter, when about 
to lay their eggs, turn a little on one side, unsheathe their saws, 
and thrust them obliquely into the skin of the leaf, depositing, in 
each incision thus made, a single egg. The young begin to hatch 
in ten days or a fortnight after the eggs are laid. They may 
sometimes be found on the leaves as early as the first of June, 
but do not usually appear in considerable numbers till the twen- 
tieth of the same month. Hov*^ long they are in coming to ma- 
turity, I have not particularly observed ; but the period of their 
existence in the caterpillar state probably does not exceed three 
weeks. They somewhat resemble the young of the saw-fly in 



HYMENOPTERA. 381 

form, but are not quite so convex. They have a small, round, 
yellowish head, with a black dot on each side of it, and are pro- 
vided with twenty-two short legs. The body is green above, 
paler at the sides, and yellowish beneath ; and it is soft, and al- 
most transparent like jelly. The skin of the back is transversely 
wrinkled, and covered with minute elevated points ; and there 
are two, small, triple-pointed warts on the edge of the first ring, 
immediately behind the head. These gelatinous and sluggish 
creatures eat the upper surface of the leaf in large irregular patch- 
es, leaving the veins and the skin, beneath, untouched ; and they 
are sometimes so thick that not a leaf on the bushes is spared by 
them, and the whole foliage looks as if it had been scorched by 
fire, and drops off soon afterwards. They cast their skins sev- 
eral times, leaving them extended and fastened on the leaves ; af- 
ter the last moulting they lose their semitransparent and greenish 
color, and acquire an opake yellowish hue. They then leave the 
rose-bushes, some of them slowly creeping down the stem, and 
others rolling up and dropping off, especially when the bushes 
are shaken by the wind. Having reached the ground, they bur- 
row to the depth of an inch or more in the earth, where each 
one makes for itself a small oval cell, of grains of earth, cement- 
ed with a little gummy silk. Having finished their transforma- 
tions, and turned to flies, within their cells, they come out of the 
ground early in August, and lay their eggs for a second brood of 
young. These, in turn, perform their appointed work of destruc- 
tion in the autumn ; they then go into the ground, make their 
earthen cells, remain therein throughout the winter, and appear, 
in the winged form, in the following spring and summer. 

During several years past, these pernicious vermin have infest- 
ed the rose-bushes in the vicinity of Boston, and have proved so 
injurious to them, as to have excited the attention of the Massa- 
chusetts Horticultural Society, by whom a premium of one hun- 
dred dollars, for the most successful mode of destroying these 
insects, was offered, in the summer of 1840. About ten years 
ago, I observed them in gardens in Cambridge, and then made 
myself acquainted with their transformations. At that time they 
had not reached Milton, my former place of residence, and have 
appeared in that place only within two or three years. They 



382 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

now seem to be gradually extending in all directions, and an ef- 
fectual method for preserving our roses from their attacks has 
become very desirable to all persons who set any value on this 
beautiful ornament of our gardens and shrubberies. Showering 
or syringing the bushes with a liquor, made by mixing with water 
the juice expressed from tobacco by tobacconists, has been rec- 
ommended ; but some caution is necessary in making this mix- 
ture of a proper strength, for if too strong it is injurious to plants; 
and the experiment does not seem, as yet, to have been conduct- 
ed with sufficient care to insure safety and success. Dusting lime 
over the plants when wet with dew has been tried, and found of 
some use ; but this and all other remedies will probably yield in 
efficacy to Mr. Haggerston's mixture of whale-oil soap and wa- 
ter, in the proportion of two pounds of the soap to fifteen gallons 
of water. Particular directions, drawn up by Mr. Haggerston 
himself, for the preparation and use of this simple and cheap ap- 
phcation, may be found in the "Boston Courier," for the twenty- 
fifth of June, 1841, and also in most of our agricultural and hor- 
ticultural journals of the same time. The utility of this mixture 
has already been repeatedly mentioned in this treatise, and it 
may be applied in other cases with advantage. Mr. Haggerston 
finds that it effectually destroys many kinds of insects ; and he 
particularly mentions plant-lice of various kinds, red spiders, 
canker-worms, and a little jumping insect, which has lately been 
found quite as hurtful to rose-bushes as the slugs or young of the 
saw-fly. The little insect, alluded to, has been mistaken for a 
species of Thrips or vine-fretter ; it is, however, a leaf-hopper, 
or species of Tettigonia, much smaller than the leaf-hopper of 
the grape-vine (Tettigonin Vitis), described in a former part of 
this essay,* and, like the leaf-hopper of the bean, entirely of a 
pale green color. 

According to the plan to which I have found it necessary to 
limit this essay, only one more species of saw-fly remains to be 
described. Of the habits and transformations of this insect the 
late Professor Peck has given us an admirable account, under the 
title of a " Natural History of the Slug worm," which was printed 

* Page 184. 



HYMENOPTERA. 383 

in Boston, in the year 1799, by order of "the Massachusetts 
Agricuhural Society," and obtained the Society's premium of 
fifty dollars and a gold medal. As my own observations on this 
insect agree perfectly with those of Professor Peck, in the fol- 
lowing remarks I have merely abridged and condensed his "Nat- 
ural History of the Slug worm," a work now out of print, and 
rarely to be met with. It will be proper to premise that Profes- 
sor Peck was inclined to believe this slug-fly to be a variety of 
the Tenthredo Cerasi of Linnaeus, an insect found more common- 
ly on the pear-tree in Europe than on the cherry, although it has 
a specific name derived from the latter tree. Most naturalists 
now reject the name given by Linnaeus to the slimy grub of the 
pear-tree, because it is not strictly correct, and substitute a spe- 
cific name imposed upon it by Fabricius. The European insect, 
therefore, is now called Selandria ( Blennocampa) M.thiops ; and 
a good account of it, by Mr. Westwood, may be found in the 
thirteenth volume of " The Gardener's Magazine." It is possible 
that our slug-fly may have been imported from Europe, and it 
may turn out to be really a mere variety of the European insect. 
Professor Peck was aware that it did not agree with the descrip- 
tion, given by Linnaeus, of the latter ; and it appears to me that 
the difference between the two insects, in their winged state, is 
enough to entitle them to be considered as specifically distinct 
from each other. For this reason I shall retain for our insect the 
specific name adopted by Professor Peck, because this slug does 
really live upon the cherry, in this country, as well as on the 
pear tree ; and shall merely prefix to it the generical name which 
it should bear according to modern nomenclature. The fly of 
our slug- worm may therefore be called Selandria {Blennocampa) 
Cerasi. The meaning of the word Selandria is unknown to me. 
Blennocampa signifies slimy caterpillar, a name which, it will be 
seen, may be applied with great propriety to our slug-worm. 

This slug-fly is of a glossy black color, except the first two 
pairs of legs, which are dirty yellow or clay-colored, with black- 
ish thighs, and the hind-legs, which are dull black, with clay- 
colored knees. The wings are somewhat convex and rumpled 
or uneven^ on the upper side, like the wings of the saw-flies gen- 
erally. They are transparent, reflecting the changeable colors of 



384 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the rain-bow, and have a smoky tinge, forming a cloud or broad 
band across the middle of the first pair ; the veins are brownish. 
The body of ihs female measures rather more than one fifth of 
an inch in length ; that of the male is smaller. In the year 1828, 
I observed these saw-flies, on cherry and plum trees, in Milton, 
on the tenth of May ; but they usually appear towards the end 
of May or early in June. Soon afterwards some of them begin 
to lay their eggs, and all of them finish this business and disappear 
within the space of three weeks. Their eggs are placed, singly, 
within little semicircular incisions through the skin of the leaf, 
and generally on the lower side of it. The flies have not the 
timidity of many other insects, and are not easily disturbed while 
laying their eggs. On the fourteenth day afterwards, the eggs be- 
gin to hatch, and the young slug-worms continue to come for^h 
from the fifth of June to the twentieth of July, according as the 
flies have appeared early or late in the spring. At first the slugs 
are white ; but a slimy matter soon oozes out of their skin and 
covers their backs with an olive-colored sticky coat. They have 
twenty very short legs, or a pair under each segment of the body 
except the fourth and the last. The largest slugs are about nine 
twentieths of an inch in length, when fully grown. The head, of 
a dark chestnut color, is small, and is entirely concealed under 
the forepart of the body. They are largest before, and taper 
behind, and in form somewhat resemble minute tadpoles. They 
have the faculty of swelling out the forepart of the body, and 
generally rest with the tail a little turned up. These disgusting 
slugs live mostly on the upper side of the leaves of the pear and 
cherry trees, and eat away the substance thereof, leaving only the 
veins and the skin beneath untouched. Sometimes twenty or 
thirty of them may be seen on a single leaf ; and, in the year 
1797, they were so abundant, in some parts of Massachusetts, 
that small trees were covered with them, and the foliage entirely 
destroyed ; and even the air, by passing through the trees, be- 
came charged with a very disagreeable and sickening odor, given 
out by these shmy creatures. The trees attacked by them are 
forced to throw out new leaves, during the heat of the summer, 
at the ends of the twigs and branches that still remain alive ; and 
this unseasonable foliage, which should not have appeared till the 



HYMENOPTERA. 385 

next spring, exhausts the vigor of the trees, and cuts off the 
prospect of fruit. The skig-vvorms come to their growth in 
twenty-six days, during which period they cast their skins five 
times. Frequently, as soon as the skin is shed, they are seen 
feeding upon it ; but they never touch the last coat, which re- 
mains stretched out upon the leaf. After this is cast off, they no 
longer retain their slimy appearance and olive color, but have a 
clean yellow skin, entirely free from viscidity. They change 
also in form, and become proportionally longer ; and their head 
and the marks between the rings are plainly to be seen. In a 
few hours after this change, they leave the trees, and, having 
crept or fallen to the ground, they burrow to the depth of from 
one inch to three or four inches, according to the nature of the 
soil. By moving their body, the earth around them becomes 
pressed equally on all sides, and an oblong oval cavity is thus 
formed, and is afterwards lined with a sticky and glossy substance, 
to which the grains of earth closely adhere. Within these little 
earthen cells or cocoons the change to chrysalids takes place ; 
and, in sixteen days after the descent of the slug-worms, they 
finish their transformations, break open their cells, and crawl to 
the surface of the ground, where they appear in the fly form. 
These flies usually come forth between the middle of July and 
the first of August, and lay their eggs for a second brood of slug- 
worms. The latter come to their growth, and go into the ground, 
in September and October, and remain there till the following 
spring, when they are changed to flies, and leave their winter- 
quarters. It seems that all of them, however, do not finish their 
transformations at this time ; some are found to remain unchanged 
in the ground till the following year ; so that, if all the slugs of 
the last hatch in any one year should happen to be destroyed, 
enough, from a former brood, would still remain in the earth to 
continue the species. 

The disgusting appearance and smell of these slug-worms do 
not protect them from the attacks of various enemies. Mice and 
other burrowing animals destroy many of them in their cocoons, 
and it is probable that birds also prey upon them when on the 
trees, both in the slug and the winged states. Professor Peck 
has described a minute ichneumon-fly, stated by Mr. Westwood 
49 



386 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

to be a species of Encyrtus, that stings the eggs of the slug-fly, 
and deposits in each one a single egg of her own. From this, in 
due time, a Httle maggot is hatched, which hves in the shell of the 
slug-fly's egg, devours the contents, and afterwards is changed to 
a chrysalis, and then to a fly like its parent. Professor Peck found 
that great numbers of the eggs of the slug-fly, especially of the 
second hatch, were rendered abortive by this atom of existence. 

Ashes or quicklime, sifted on the trees by means of a sieve 
fastened to the end of a pole, was recommended, by the late 
Hon. John Lowell, of Roxbury, for the destruction of the slugs ; 
and it is found to answer the purpose. It is probable that Mr. 
Haggerston's almost universal remedy may prove to be still more 
effectual. 

The saw-flies, though undoubtedly belonging to the order Hy- 
menoptera, depart from the general characters thereof more than 
any other insects in it. They are more dull and heavy in all 
their motions ; they have not the powerful jaws of the predaceous 
tribes, nor the long and slender lower jaws and tongue of those 
that subsist upon honey. They live but a short time, and their 
food appears to be pollen, the tender parts of leaves, and some- 
times the plant-lice and other soft-bodied insects frequenting flow- 
ers. In the stiffness of their upper wings, and the heaviness of 
their flight, they somewhat resemble beetles, and, analogically, 
may be said to typify the Coleoptera, or, in other words, they 
may be called the beedes of the Hymenoptera. They will be 
found, on comparison, to have some features in common with the 
crickets, which, with the earwigs, are also the representatives of 
the Coleoptera. Although they difi^er essentially from butterflies 
and moths, the resemblance of most of their young to caterpil- 
lars, in form and in habits, is very striking and remarkable. 
Hence the saw-flies plainly show the relation existing between 
the orders Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera, and serve closely to 
connect them together. 

The next piercing insects to be described belong to the family 
of UROcERiDiE, or hom-tails, so called because they have a 
horny point at the end of the body. The Germans call them 
wood-wasps. Their antennae are slender, and thread-like, or ta- 
pering. They have a large head, convex before, and flat behind 



HYMENOPTERA. 387 

where it joins the thorax. Their wings are long, narrow, and 
strong, and overlap on the top of the back, when closed. The 
body is very long, and nearly or quite cylindrical ; the thorax and 
the after part of the body are of equal thickness, and are closely 
joined together. The horn, at the end, is short, and conical or 
triangular, in the males ; longer, and sometimes spear-pointed, in 
the females. Moreover the latter are provided with a long, cy- 
lindrical borer, hinged to the middle of the belly, which is fur- 
rowed to receive it. The borer usually extends some distance 
beyond the end of the body, and consists of five pieces. The 
two outermost are grooved within, and, when shut, form a hollow 
tube or scabbard to the others, one of which represents the two 
backs of the saws of the saw-flies, joined together, and encloses 
two needles for boring holes. The part, serving for a back to 
these needles, is notched on each side, and the needles them- 
selves, which are as fine as a hair, and as strong and elastic as 
wire, have several small teeth along the lower side towards the 
end. These needles, and the back in which they play, are so #■ 
connected as to appear to be only a single spear-pointed awl. 
With this complicated and powerful tool the females bore holes 
into the trunks of trees, wherein they drop their eggs. Their 
young are cylindrical and fleshy grubs, of a whitish color, with a 
small, rounded, horny head, and a pointed and horny tail. They 
have six very small legs under the forepart of the body, and are 
provided with strong and powerful jaws, wherewith they bore 
long holes in the trunks of the trees that they inhabit. Like 
other borers, these grubs are wood-eaters, and often do great 
damage to pines and firs, wherein they are most commonly found. 
When fully grown, the grubs make thin cocoons of silk, inter- 
woven with little chips, in their burrows, and in them go through 
their transformations. Tl^e chrysalis is somewhat like the winged 
insect in form, but is of a yellowish white color, till near the time 
of its last change, and the wings and legs are folded under the 
breast ; in all these respects it agrees with the chrysalids of other 
Hymenopterous insects. After the chrysalis skin is cast off, the 
winged insect breaks through its cocoon, creeps to the mouih of 
its burrow, and gnaws through the covering of bark over it, so 
as to come out of the tree into the open air. It is stated that the 



388 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

grubs of the large species come to their growth in seven weeks 
after the eggs are laid. If this be true, and it seems hardly pos- 
sible, the chrysalis state must last a long time, for the perfected 
insects have been known to come out of timber that had been 
cut up and applied to mechanical uses by the carpenter. Some 
persons have supposed that they attacked only diseased and de- 
cayed trees, in which it must be admitted they are often found in 
great numbers. But many instances might be mentioned of their 
appetite for sound wood also, and it is probable that the presence 
of these insects, like that of many others, is the cause and not 
the consequence of the decay of the trees wherein they live. It 
is stated in the London " Zoological Journal," that two hundred 
Scotch firs have been destroyed by the Urocerus Juvencus, in the 
woods of Henham Hall, the seat of the Earl of Stanhope, their 
trunks being bored through and through by the grubs of this in- 
sect. Mr. Westwood relates * that a piece of wood, twenty feet 
in length, from a fir-tree in Bewdley Forest, Worcestershire, 
• England, was found to be so intersected by the burrows of these 
grubs, as to be fit for nothing but fire-wood ; and that the winged 
insects continued to come out of it, at the rate of five, six, or 
more each day, for the space of several weeks. Mr. Marsham 
states, on the authority of Sir Joseph Banks, that several speci- 
mens of Urocerus gigas were seen to come out of the floor of a 
nursery in a gentleman's house, to the no small alarm and discom- 
fiture of both nurse and children. The grubs must therefore 
have existed in the boards or timbers before they were employed 
in building, and these materials would not have been used if in a 
decayed state. The sexes of most of these insects differ con- 
siderably in size and color, and in the shape of their body and of 
their hind-legs. There are not many different kinds, but they 
are very prolific, and abound in mountainous districts, and in 
temperate chmates, where forests of pines and firs prevail. A 
new order was proposed for their reception by Mr. Macleay, and 
was named Bombopera^ on account of the humming sound that 
they make in flying. Their young partake of the nature of the 
wood-eating grubs of the Capricorn beetles, which therefore they 

*" Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects," Vol. II., p. 118. 



HYMENOPTERA. 389 

may be said to represent, as the saw-flies do some of the leaf- 
eating insects of the same order. 

Eight of the Urocerid.e are enumerated in my "Catalogue 
of the Insects of Massachusetts," including two kinds of Xiphy- 
dria, which are now known to belong to the same family. 

In the autumn of 1826, Major E. M. Bartlett, of Northamp- 
ton, "found, on the body of one of his almost lifeless pear-trees, 
a dead insect, about one inch and a half long, attached to the 
tree by its awl or borer, of about the same length, near an inch 
of which was fast in the hard wood ; and there were several deep 
punctures near it, evidently made by the same instrument, and in 
some of them eggs were deposited." Not long afterwards Major 
Bartlett found that the body of this tree, two or three feet from 
the ground, was pierced with many small holes, to the depth of 
an inch or more, and, in these holes, there were great numbers of 
larvae, about one sixth of an inch in length, which he supposed 
were hatched from the eggs seen there before ; and he came to 
the conclusion that the tree was " destroyed by the deadly nee- 
dles of the winged insect " above mentioned.* The latter was 
subsequently sent to me for examination, and enabled me to fur- 
nish an account of it, which, with a description of the male insect, 
was published in January, 1827, in the fifth volume of the "New 
England Farmer." The insect proved to be the Sirex Columba 
of Linnaeus, or Tremex Columba of modern naturalists. Sirex is 
a corruption of the Greek name for a wild bee ; Tremex signifies 
a perforator, or maker of holes ; and Columba a pigeon. The 
body of the female is cylindrical, about as thick as a common 
lead-pencil, and an inch and a half, or more, in length, exclusive 
of the borer, which is an inch long, and projects three eighths of 
an inch beyond the end of the body. The latter rounds up- 
wards, like the stem of ajaoat, and is armed with a point or short 
horn. The head and the thorax are rust-colored, varied with 
black. The abdom.en, or hinder and longest part of the body, 
is black, with seven ochre-yellow bands across the back, all of 
them but the first two interrupted in the middle. The horned 
tail, and a round spot before it, impressed as if with a seal, are 

* See " New England Farmer," Vol. V., pages 1G7, ]75, ISG, and 211. 



390 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

ochre-yellow. The antennae are rather short and blunt, rust- 
colored, with a broad black ring in the middle. The wings ex- 
pand two inches and a quarter, or more ; they are smoky brown 
and semitransparent. The legs are ochre-yellow, with blackish 
thighs. The borer, awl, or needle, is as thick as a bristle, spear- 
pointed at the end, and of a black color ; it is concealed, when 
not in use, between two, narrow, rust-colored side-pieces, form- 
ing a kind of scabbard to it. This insect is figured and de- 
scribed in the second volume of the late Mr. Say's " American 
Entomology." The male does not appear to have been de- 
scribed by any author ; and, although agreeing, in some respects, 
with the two other species, represented by Mr. Say, is evidently 
distinct from both of them. He is extremely unlike the female, in 
color, form, and size, and is not furnished with the remarkable 
borer of the other sex. He is rust-colored, variegated with 
black. His antennse are rust-yellow or blackish. His wings are 
smoky, but clearer than those of the female. His hind-body is 
somewhat flattened, rather widest behind, and ends with a conical 
horn. His hind-legs are flattened, much wider than those of the 
female, and of a blackish color ; the other legs are rust-colored, 
and more or less shaded with black. The length of his body 
varies from three quarters of an inch to one inch and a quarter ; 
and his wings expand from one inch and a quarter to two inches, 
or more. 

An old elm-tree in this vicinity used to be a favorite place of 
resort for the Trernex Columba, or pigeon Tremex ; and around 
it great numbers of the insects were often collected, during the 
months of July and August, and the early part of September. 
Six or more females might frequently be seen at once upon it, 
employed in boring into the trunk and laying their eggs, while 
swarms of the males hovered around them. Within a year or 
two, some large button-wood trees, in Cambridge, have been vis- 
ited by them in the same way. The female, when about to lay 
her eggs, draws her borer out of its sheath, till it stands perpen- 
dicularly under the middle of her body, when she plunges it, by 
repeated wriggling motions, through the bark into the wood. 
When the hole is made deep enough, she then drops an egg there- 
in, conducting it to the place by means of the two furrowed 



HYMENOPTERA. 391 

pieces of the sheath. The borer often pierces the bark and 
wood to the depth of half an inch or more, and is sometimes 
driven in so tightly that the insect cannot draw it out again, but 
remains fastened to the tree till she dies. The eggs are oblong 
oval, pointed at each end, and rather less than one twentieth of 
an inch in length. The larva, or grub, is yellowish white, of a 
cylindrical shape, rounded behind, with a conical, horny point on 
the upper part of the hinder extremity, and it grows to the length 
of about an inch and a half. It is often destroyed by the mag- 
gots of two kinds of ichneumon-flies (Pimpla atrata and lunator 
of Fabricius). These flies may frequently be seen thrusting 
their slender borers, measuring from three to four inches in length, 
into the trunks of trees inhabited by the grubs of the Tremex 
and by other wood-eating insects ; and, like the female Tremex, 
they sometimes become fastened to the trees, and die without be- 
ing able to draw their borers out again. 

Urocerus albicornis, of Fabricius, the white-horned Urocerus, 
has white antennse, longer and more tapering than those of the 
pigeon Tremex, and black at each end. The female is of a deep 
blue-black color, with an oval, white spot behind each eye, and 
another on each side of the hinder part of the abdomen. The 
horn on the tail is long, and shaped like the head of a lance. 
The wings are smoky brown, and semitransparent. The legs 
are black, with white joints. The body measures about an inch 
in length, and the wings expand nearly two inches. The male has 
a black head, with a white spot, on each side, behind the eyes. 
His thorax and legs are black. His abdomen is flattened, and 
rust-colored, and ends with a flattened horny point. He meas- 
ures about an inch in length. This species, which is not com- 
mon, has been found on pine-trees in July. 

Urocerus nitidus, the polished horn-tail, is an undescribed spe- 
cies, for which I am indebted to the Rev. L. W. Leonard. 
The male is not known to me. The female is of a deep blue 
color, downy on the head and thorax, smooth and highly polished 
on the abdomen, the er^ of which is armed with a flattened horny 
point. Her wings are clear and perfectly transparent, with brown- 
ish veins, and have only a faint smoky tinge towards the tip. Her 
legs are ochre-yellow. The body of this insect measures rather 



392 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

more than three quarters of an inch, exclusive of the horn on the 
tail. This insect difiers from the European Urocerus Juvenciis 
in the much greater brilliancy of its color, and in having shorter 
antennae. The borer of this and of the preceding species resem- 
bles, in form and structure, that of the pigeon Tremex, and is 
used in the same way 

Urocerus abdominalis,* the black and the orange horn-tail, of 
which only the male is known to me, has not been described be- 
fore. It is black, with the four m.iddle segments of the abdomen 
deep orange. There is a pale yellow spot behind each eye ; the 
front corners of the thorax are pale brownish yellow ; and there 
are two minute yellowish scales on the back part of the thorax. 
The abdomen is flattened and widened behind, and ends with a 
flattened or triangular point. The antennse are long and tapering, 
of a reddish brown color, with the two extremities black. The 
wings are transparent, with brown veins, and are a little smoky at 
the tips. The first four legs are ochre-yellow, with black thighs ; 
and the hind-legs are black, with yellow knees and feet. This 
insect varies in length from six tenths to more than three quarters 
of "an inch. It is found in July, on the trunks of the white pine. 

Mr. Westwood has ascertained that the grubs of the insects 
belonging to the genus Xiphydria have the same form and habits 
as those of the horn-tailed wood-wasps. The name comes from 
a word signifying a small sword, in allusion to the borer of the 
female, which is shorter than in the preceding horn-tails. The 
winged insects have a rounded head, distant from the thorax, to 
the lower part of which it is joined by a slender conical neck. 
The body is nearly cylindrical, a little flattened, somewhat turned 
up behind, and ends with an obtuse point. The antennse are 
short, curved, and tapering at the end. 

Xijphydria albicornis of my " Catalogue," or the white-horned 
Xiphydria, has white antennae with the two lowest joints black. 
The head is black, with a narrow white line around each of the 
eyes, forming a large oval, interrupted only in two places, on 
each side of the head. The body is black, with a spot on the 

* So named from the great contrast in the colors of the abdomen. In my 
" Catalogue " it stands under the genus Sirex of Linnaeus, which is the same as 
Urocerus of GeoflFroy. 



HYMENOPTERA. 393 

front corners of the thorax, and six spots on each side of the 
abdomen, of a white color. Tlie legs are reddish yellow or 
honey-yellow, with dusky feet. The wings are transparent, and 
have blackish veins. The body measures from six tenths to 
nearly three quarters of an inch in length. This insect is found 
on the trunks of trees of soft wood, in August. 

Xiphydria mellipes, of my " Catalogue," may be merely a va- 
riety of the preceding, from which it differs chiefly in having only 
four white spots on each side of the abdomen. It is four tenths 
of an inch long. 1 am indebted to the Rev. L. W. Leonard for 
specimens of these two species. 

The name of the genus Oryssus comes from a Greek word 
signifying to dig holes. The insects belonging to it differ con- 
siderably from the other Uroceridce, but, from what little is 
known respecting them, they appear to have the same habits. 
They have a cylindrical body, almost rounded behind, or bluntly 
pointed, and not distinctly horned. Their heads are large, and 
very rough on the front. Their antennae appear to come out 
of the mouth, being inserted close to it, under the outer angles of 
the visor ; are rather short, curved, and thread-like ; and are un- 
equal in the number and size of the joints, in the two sexes. They 
have a short and thick neck. Their borer is very slender, is en- 
tirely concealed in a deep and narrow chink under the hinder part 
of the body, and is coiled up at its base, so that it can be darted out 
to some distance when extended. The fore-legs of the females 
are very thick, and have only three joints to the feet ; while the 
rest, as well as all of the feet of the male, are five-jointed. Their 
wings have but few veins and meshes in them. These insects 
are active, fly quickly, and love to alight and run about on the 
sunny side of the trunks of trees, wherein they are supposed to 
lay their eggs. 

For a long time, only two kinds of Oryssus were known to nat- 
uralists, and both of them were European insects. In the year 
1833, three undescribed species were enumerated in my "Cata- 
logue of the Insects of Massachusetts ; " and these, in the second 
edition of the "Catalogue," which was published early in 1835, 
received the following descriptive names, by means whereof an 
entomologist would find little or no difficulty in recognising them ; 
50 



394 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

namely hamorrhoidalis^ the red-tailed, maurus, the dark-colored, 
and ajffinis, the allied, so called from its near resemblance to the 
preceding species. These singular insects were taken upon a 
willow-tree, by my friend, the Rev. L. W. Leonard, and were 
presented to me many years ago. 

The red-tailed Oryssus has been renamed and described, by 
Mr. Newman, in the October number of the fifth volume * of 
" The Entomological Magazine," published in London in 1838. 
It is his Oryssus terminaUs. The female only is known to me. 
Her body is black, rough before, and smooth behind, with the 
last three segments of a blood-red color. The outer side of the 
fourth and fifth joints of her antennae, her knees, and a line on the 
outer edge of her shins, are white. Her feet are dull red. Her 
wings are clear and transparent, with a broad, smoky brown, trans- 
verse band, beyond the middle of the first pair. Her body meas- 
ures nearly six tenths of an inch in length. 

The dark-colored Oryssus is probably the same as one de- 
scribed by Mr. Westwood, in 1835, in the fifth volume f of " The 
Zoological .Journal," under the name of Oryssus Sayiij in honor 
of the late Mr. Say, who sent him the insect. It is of a deep 
black color, rough before and smooth behind, and is marked with 
white on the antennae and legs, like the red-tailed kind, with the 
addition of two, short, white lines on the forehead, between the 
lower corners of the eyes. The feet are black. The wings 
have a smoky band beyond the middle, which, however, fades 
away towards the inner margin. I have seen only females of this 
species, and they measure from four to five tenths of an inch in 
length. 

It is possible that my Oryssus ajffinis, which is a male, may be 
the mate of the foregoing dark-colored species, from which it 
differs in having reddish feet, and in wanting the two white spots 
on the forehead. It measures four tenths of an inch in length. 

From this somewhat extended account, it is evident that we 
have very little power over the insects of the foregoing family. 
The most that we can do, towards checking their ravages, will 
be to destroy the females, whenever they are found laying their 
eggs^^ 

* Page 486. 1 Page 440. 



HYMENOPTERA. 395 

The four-winged gall-flies have very little outward resemblance 
to the saw-flies and horn-tailed wood-wasps. They agree with 
them, however, in boring into plants, and in laying their eggs there- 
in. Vegetation does not often suffer much injury from their attacks, 
and it is only on account of the very singular productions, called 
galls, arising from the irritating punctures of these insects, that 
the attention of cultivators is at all likely to be drawn to them. 
There are some two-winged flies, and also some other insects, 
which produce various kinds of excrescences or galls on plants ; 
but these, now under consideration, are very small, four-winged 
insects, belonging to the order Hymenoptera, and distinguished 
by the following peculiarities. The head is small ; the antennae 
are rather short, slender, and thread-like ; and the thorax is thick 
and hunched. The abdomen or hind-body, viewed sidewise, ap- 
pears round or oval, but it is sharp-edged above and below, 
very thin or pinched up at the sides, and is hung to the thorax by 
a very short and slender stem. The fore-wings are rather long, 
and have only a few veins in them ; the hind-wings are small, and 
seemingly veinless. The borer of the females is very long, and 
slender, concealed in the under-side of the hind-body, the curva- 
ture whereof it follows, and is capable of being straightened and 
thrust out of a narrow chink, which is covered by two little, 
grooved, sheath-like pieces, that serve to conduct the eggs into 
the holes made with the instrument. The genus containing most 
of the gall-flies was called, by GeofFroy, Diplolepis, that is, 
double scales, on account of the two pieces that cover the open- 
ing for the borer in the hinder part of the abdomen. The same 
insects, however, had previously been placed by Linnaeus in the 
genus Cynips^ so called from a word used by ancient authors to 
designate some small piercing insect. The Linnaean name, though 
for some time rejected, has been restored to the gall-flies, which 
accordingly are now included in a family called Cynipid^. The 
punctures, made by these insects in the leaves, buds, stems, and 
roots of plants, are followed by swellings of the wounded parts, 
which increase rapidly in size, and become spongy or pulpy with- 
in. The thin-skinned eggs, dropped into the punctures, grow 
awhile, by absorbing the sap around them, and, when at length 
they are hatched, the little grubs, proceeding therefrom, find 



396 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

themselves comfortably bedded within the pulpy tumors, and 
plentifully supplied with food on every side. They feed on the 
vegetable substance immediately around them, come to their 
growth in due time, cast their skins, and appear first in the chrys- 
alis and then in the winged form, and finally gnaw their way 
through the hard shell of the galls, and come out into the open 
air. There are a few of the grubs, however, that leave the galls 
when fully grown, and finish their transformations in the ground. 
The grubs or young of the gall-flies are of a whitish color, and 
somewhat resemble maggots, but are shorter and thicker, and have 
a small, distinct head. They are without proper legs, and move 
only by means of the swollen edges of their rings, with the aid, 
it is said, of certain little contractile warts, on their bodies, that 
serve them instead of feet. There are almost as many kinds of 
galls as there are species of gall-flies ; and each species confines 
its attacks to some one sort of plant, and to some particular part 
thereof. It is wonderful that there should be such a diversity in 
the forms and texture of the galls of insects so nearly resembling 
each other in form and structure ; and, on the other hand, that 
each species of gall-fly should invariably produce galls of the 
same kind. Many galls are very irregular and uneven, others are 
round and resemble fruits ; some are smooth, others are beset 
with prickles, or covered with a woolly substance ; some hang by 
little stems, others are perfectly flat, and adhere closely to the 
surface of leaves. At first they are soft or spongy within, but, 
after some time, they become hard and almost or quite woody. 
The eggs of some gall-flies do not hatch till the galls begin to 
grow hard on the outside ; this is the reason why we do not find 
any insects within certain kinds of galls, so long as they remain 
soft and unripe. Of this description are the galls called swamp- 
apples and cedar-apples. The former grow on the small twigs 
of the swamp-pink, or Azalea viscosa ; they are irregular in 
shape, of a greenish white color, and fleshy consistence, like an 
apple, and are sometimes eaten, but are rather too astringent to 
be pleasant. Cedar-apples are found on the twigs of the red 
cedar (Juniperus Virginiana); in their unripe state they are 
large, irregular, and coarsely fringed lumps, of an orange color, 
and as soft as jelly ; they afterwards shrink, become hard and 



HYMENOPTERA. 397 

round, and the thick, fringe-like projections on their surface short- 
en, and take the appearance of leathery prickles. They have been 
given as a medicine to expel worms ; and their efficacy, if they 
really have any, probably depends upon the resin and oil pecu- 
liar to the tree, which gives to the galls, even when dried, some- 
what of a turpentine smell. The round and hard Aleppo galls, 
or nutgalls of commerce, used in the making of ink, in coloring, 
and in medicine, are caused by the punctures of the Cynips gallon 
iinctorice, on a kind of oak, growing in the western part of Asia ; 
and the insect may often be found in those which are not pierced 
with holes. Some galls contain only a single insect, lodged in a 
little cavity in the centre ; other kinds are inhabited by several 
grubs, each in a cell by itself, and the cells not unfrequently re- 
semble numerous small seeds, clustered together in the middle of 
a fruit. Two or three different kinds of insects are often found 
to come from one gall, namely a few gall-flies, which are the law- 
ful proprietors thereof, and more numerous four-winged flies 
(Chalcidid^), with elbowed antennae. The latter are bred 
from grubs, which devour the grubs of some of the gall-flies, or 
starve them by eating up their food, and thereby contribute to 
check the too great increase of the gall-flies. 

The largest galls found in this country are commonly called 
oak-apples. They grow on the leaves of the red oak, are round 
and smooth, and measure from an inch and a half to two inches 
in diameter. This kind of gall is green and somewhat pulpy at 
first, but, when ripe, it consists of a thin and brittle shell, of a 
dirty drab color, enclosing a quantity of brown spongy matter, 
in the middle of which is a woody kernel about as big as a pea. 
A single grub lives in the kernel, becomes a chrysalis in the au- 
tumn, when the oak-apple falls from the tree, changes to a fly in 
the spring, and makes its escape out of a small round hole which 
it gnaws through the kernel and shell. This is probably the usual 
course, but I have known this gall-fly to come out in October. 
The name of this insect is Cynips confluent us.* Its head and 
thorax are black, and rough with numerous little pits and short 
hairs ; the hind-body is smooth, and of a shining pitch color ; the 

* Diplolcpis conflucntus , Harris. " Catalogue." 



398 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

legs are dull brownish red ; and the fore-wings have a brown spot 
near the middle of the outer edge. Its body is nearly one quar- 
ter of an inch long, and its wings expand five eighths of an inch. 

A dwarf oak (Qttercws infectoria), growing on the borders of 
the Dead Sea, produces galls somewhat like the foregoing, which 
have been supposed to be the apples of Sodom, described by an- 
cient writers as fruits fair to the view, but crumbling into dust 
when handled. A late writer,* however, has shown that these 
tempting and deceptive productions are the real fruits of a tree, 
the Asdepias procera, resembling our common silk-weed in its 
botanical characters. 

Clusters of three or four round and smooth galls are often seen 
on the small twigs of the white oak. They are nearly as large 
as bullets, of a greenish color on one side, and red on the other. 
They approach in hardness to the Aleppo galls, and perhaps 
might be put to the same use. Each one is the nest of a single 
insect, which turns to a fly and eats its way out, in June and July, 
having passed the winter as a chrysalis, within the gall, lodged in 
a clay-colored egg-shaped case, about three twentieths of an inch 
long, and with a brittle shell. These little cases appear to be 
cocoons, but are not made of silk or fibrous matter. Similar co- 
coons are found within many other galls, and I have some which 
were discovered under stones, and were not contained in galls, 
but produced gall-flies, the insects having left their galls to finish 
their transformations in the ground. The gall-fly of the white 
oak varies in color. Sometimes it closely resembles the gall-fly 
of our oak-apple, differing from it only in size, and in wanting 
the brownish spot and dark colored veins on the fore-wings ; and 
sometimes it is of a dull brownish yellow color, with a brown 
spot on the back. It is three twentieths of an inch long, and its 
wings expand three tenths of an inch. It is the Diplolepis, or 
more properly Cynips^ oneratus of my " Catalogue." 

Galls of the size and color of grapes are found on the leaves 
of some oaks. Each one contains a grub, which finishes its 
transformations in June. The winged insect is my Cijnips nuhil- 
ipennis, or cloudy-winged Cynips, so named from the smoky 

* Robinson's " Biblical Researclies in Palestine," Vol. II., p. 235. 



HYMENOPTERA. 399 

cloud on the tips of its wings. Excepting in this respect, it 
closely resembles the dark-colored variety of Cynips oncratus, 
and very little exceeds it in size. 

One of our smallest gall-flies may be called Cynips seminator, 
or the sower. She lays a great number of eggs in a ring-like 
cluster around the small twigs of the white oak, and her punctures 
are followed by the growth of a rough or shaggy reddish gall, as 
large sometimes as a walnut. When this is ripe, it is like brittle 
sponge in texture, and contains numerous little seed-like bodies, 
adhering by one end around the sides of the central twig. These 
seeming seeds have a thin and tough hull, of a yellowish white 
color ; they are egg-shaped, pointed at one end, and are nearly 
one eighth of an inch long. The gall-insects live singly, and un- 
dergo their transformations, within these seeds ; after which, in 
order to come out, they gnaw a small hole in the hull, and then 
easily work their way through the spongy ball wherein they are 
lodged. They are less than one tenth of an inch long, are almost 
black, or of the color of pitch, highly polished, especially on 
the abdomen, and their mouth, antennae, and legs are cinnamon- 
colored. 

It has been observed that no tree in Europe yields so many 
difTerent kinds of galls as the oak. Those which I have de- 
scribed are not all that are found on oaks in this country, and 
they seem to be sufficiently distinct from the galls of European 
oaks. 

Round, prickly galls, of a reddish color, and rather larger than 
a pea, may often be seen on rose-bushes. Each of them con- 
tains a single grub, and this in due time, turns to a gall-fly, which 
may be called Cynips bicolor, the two-colored Cynips. Its head 
and thorax are black, and rough with numerous little pits ; its 
hind-body is polished, and, with the legs, of a brownish red col- 
or. It is a large insect compared with the size of its gall, meas- 
uring nearly one fifth of an inch in length, while the diameter of 
its gall, not including the prickles, rarely exceeds three tenths of 
an inch. 

Cynips dichlocerus, or the gall-fly with two-colored antennse, 
is of a brownish red or cinnamon color, with four little longitudi- 
nal grooves on the top of the thorax, the lower part of the an- 



400 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

tennae red, and the remainder black. It varies in being darker 
sometimes, and measures from one eighth to three sixteenths 
of an inch in length. Great numbers of these galls-flies are bred 
in the irregular woody galls, or long excrescences, of the stems of 
rose-bushes. 

The small roots of rose-bushes, and of other plants of the 
same family, sometimes produce rounded, warty, and woody 
knobs, inhabited by numerous gall-insects, which, in coming out, 
pierce them with small holes on all sides. The winged insects 
closely resemble the dark varieties of the preceding species, in 
color, and in the little furrows on the thorax ; but their legs are 
rather paler, and they do not measure more than one tenth of an 
inch in length. This species has been named Cynips semipiceus. 

Monstrous swellings of buds, and various other kinds of ex- 
crescences, may often be seen on plants ; but my specimens of 
the insects producing them are not in a condition to be described. 
The foregoing account, however, will serve to illustrate the hab- 
its of some of our most common gall-flies, and explain the ori- 
gin, forms, and structure of their singular productions. Such 
excrescences, as soon as they are observed on plants of any val- 
ue, should immediately be cut off, and put into the fire. Fortu- 
nately the parasitical insects, that live at the expense of the four- 
winged gall-flies, are almost or quite as numerous as the latter, 
and, as already stated, limit them in their powers of multiplication. 



DIPTERA. 401 



DIPTERA. ' 

Gnats and Flies. — Maggots. — Remarks upon and Descriptions of some of 

THE DiPTERA. — RaDISH-Fly. — TwOWlNGED GaLL-FliES, AND FrCIT-FlIES. 

— Hessian Fi.y Wheat-Fly. — Conclusion. 

Under the name of Diptera, signifying two-winged, are in- 
cluded all the insects that have only two wings, and are provided 
with two little, knobbed threads in the place of hind-wings, and a 
mouth formed for sucking or lapping. 

Various kinds of gnats and of flies are therefore the insects 
belonging to this order. The proboscis or sucker, wherewith 
they take their food, is placed under the head, and sometimes can 
be drawn up and concealed, partly or wholly, wnthin the cavity of 
the mouth. It consists of a long gutter, usually ending with two 
fleshy lips, and enclosing, in the channel on its upper side, sever- 
al fine bristles, from two to six in number, which are sometimes 
as sharp as needles, and are then capable of inflicting severe 
punctures. These piercing bristles really take the place of the 
jaws of biting insects, and hence the wounds made therewith, by 
gnats and mosquitos, are very properly called bites. The saliva 
of these insects flowing into the wounds, renders them more 
painful, and is the cause of the inflammation and itching that follow. 
The grooved sheath of the proboscis is usually very large and 
fleshy in the flies that only lap or sip their food. Two small, 
jointed feelers are commonly found attached to the base of the pro- 
boscis. Gnats and flies have softer bodies than most other winged 
insects. The head is large, and fastened to the thorax by a very 
slender neck. The eye^, especially in the males, are large, and 
occupy the whole of the sides of the head. The antennae, in 
gnats and mosquitos, are rather long, slender, and many-jointed ; 
in flies, they are short, consisting of only two or three thick 
joints, the last of which often bears a little bristle or delicate 
feather. The wings are filmy, like those of Hymenopterous in- 
sects, but usually have a greater number of veins in them. Just 
behind the wing-joints there are two little, convex scales, which 
51 



402 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

open and shut with the motion of the wings ; they are called the 
winglets. The two balancers or poisers are short threads, knob- 
bed at the end, and placed on each side of the hindmost part of 
the thorax, immediately behind the winglets. The thorax is 
often the thickest and hardest part of the body ; to it the hind- 
body is more or less closely united, and the latter, in many fe- 
males, ends with a tapering, retractile tube, wherewith the eggs 
are deposited. The legs are six in number, and each of the feet 
is provided with two claws, and two or three little cushions or 
skinny palms, by the help whereof the insects can walk on the 
smoothest surfaces, and on the ceilings of rooms, with the back 
downwards, as easily as when upright ; for the palms act like 
suckers, and thus prevent them from falling. 

Mosquitos and gnats are active both by day and night, but flies 
take wing only during the day. The hfe of these insects, even 
from the time when they are first hatched, is generally very short, 
seldom lasting more than a few weeks ; but of some kinds several 
broods are produced in the course of a single summer, and often 
in the greatest profusion. In certain countries and seasons they 
multiply so fast, and appear in such immense swarms, as to be- 
come a serious annoyance both to man and beast. 

The young insects, hatched from the eggs of gnats and of flies, 
are fleshy larvoe, usually of a whitish color, and without legs. 
They are commonly called maggots, and sometimes are mistaken 
for worms. They vary a good deal in their forms, structure, hab- 
its, and transformations, so that it is somewhat difficult to give any 
general description of them. Their breathing-holes are usually 
situated near the extremities of the body. Aquatic maggots 
often have a tubular tail, through which they breathe, and the ori- 
fice of this tube is sometimes surrounded whh beautiful feather- 
formed appendages. The larvae or maggots of the gnats, and of 
nearly all those flies which have four or six bristles in the probos- 
cis, have a distinct head covered with a horny shell. Larvse of 
this kind, when fully grown, cast off their skins to become pupae 
or chrysalids. These pupae are usually of a brown color, and 
somewhat resemble the chrysalids of certain moths, or more 
nearly those of Hymenopterous insects ; for their short and imper- 
fect legs and wings, though folded on the breast, are not immova- 



DIPTERA. 403 

bly fastened to it. They commonly have several small thorns on 
each end of the body, and a row of smaller prickles across each 
of the rings of the back. By the help of these thorns and prickles 
they work their way out of the places wherein they had previous- 
ly lived, just before they burst open their pupa-skins to come 
forth in the perfected or winged state. The pupae of mosquitos 
are not prickly, but they possess the power of swimming or tum- 
bling about in the water, by the help of two little fins on their 
tails.* The larvae of the Dipterous insects in general do not 
make cocoons ; those of some gnats (JVIycetop'iilm), which live in 
tree mushrooms, or boleti, not only cover themselves with a sil- 
ken web, under which they live, but also spin cocoons, wherein 
they undergo their transformations. The larvae of the other flies 
are not so variable in their forms as the foregoing. They are 
commonly plump, whitish maggots, obtuse behind, and tapering 
before, with a small and soft head, that can be drawn within the 
forepart of the body. They take their food almost entirely by 
suction, for their jaws are merely two little hooks, that enable 
them to fasten themselves upon the substances which serve for 
their nourishment. They increase rapidly in size, and when they 
are fully grown, they change their forms, without casting off their 
skins at all, merely by the gradual shortening of their bodies, 
which take an oblong oval shape, and turn hard and brown on the 
outside. The hardened skin of the larva thus becomes a shell 
or kind of cocoon, within which the insect is afterwards changed 
to a pupa, having its imperfect limbs folded on its breast, and from 
which, in due time, it comes forth in the form of a fly, by forcing 
off one end of the shell. f 

In the introductory chapter | a short account has already been 
given of the habits of the various kinds of gnats and flies, be- 
longing to the principal families of this order. Besides the few 
species that are injurious to vegetation, and are to be more fully 
described hereafter, there still remain some of our native flies, 
that deserve a passing notice, on account of their size, or of pe- 
culiarities in their forms, structure, and habits, although they are 
not to be included among the insects which are hurtful to plants. 

* See pages 5 and 6. t See page 6. t Page 15. 



404 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Among our long-legged gnats there is no one more singular in 
its appearance and graceful in its motions than the Ptychoptera 
davipes, of Fabricius, or club-footed Ptychoptera. A new 
genus, called Bittacomorpha, on account of the fancied resem- 
blance of this insect to the Neuropterous genus Bittacus, has lately 
been made for its reception, by Mr. Westwood.* This pretty 
gnat is of a black color, with a broad, white stripe on the face, 
a short, white line on the forepart of the thorax, and three broad, 
white rings on the legs. The sides of the thorax are silvery 
white, and the hind-body is dusky brown, with a narrow white 
line on the edges of each of the rings. The head is small, and 
almost hidden under the thick and hunched thorax ; the antennae 
are many-jointed, slender, and tapering ; the hind-body is long, 
narrow, and somewhat flattened ; the legs are very slender next 
to the body, and increase in thickness towards the end, and the 
first joint of the feet is swollen, oblong oval, and very downy. 
The length of the body is about half an inch, and the wings ex- 
pand nearly three quarters of an inch. It appears in July, and 
takes wing by day. As it flies slowly along, it seems almost to 
tread the air, balancing itself horizontally with its long legs, which 
are stretched out, like rays, from the sides of its body. 

There are exceptions to almost all general rules. Thus we 
find, among Dipterous insects, some kinds that never have wings. 
One of these is the thick-legged snow-gnat, or Chionea valga. 
This singular insect looks more like a spider than a gnat. Its 
body is rather less than one fourth of an inch long, and is of a 
brownish yellow or nankin color. The legs are rather paler, and 
are covered with short hairs. The head is small and hairy. The 
first two joints of the antennae are thick, the others slender and 
tapering, and beset with hairs. Although the wings are wanting, 
there is a pale yellow poiser on each side of the hinder part of 
the thorax. The hindmost thighs are very thick, and somewhat 
bowed, in the males, which suggested the name o( voign, or bow- 
legged, given to the insect in my "Catalogue." The body of 
the female ends with a sword-shaped borer, resembling that of a 
grasshopper. These wingless gnats live on ihe ground, and the 

* " Philosophical Magazine," Vol. VI. p. 281. Lond. 1835. 



DIPTERA. 405 

females bore into it to lay their eggs. They are not common 
here. Mr. Gosse found considerable numbers of them in Canada, 
crawling on the snow, in pine woods, during the month of 
March.* 

Travellers and new settlers, in some parts of New England and 
Canada, are very much molested by a small gnat, called the black 
fly (^Simulium molestum), swarms of which fill the air during the 
month of June. Every bite that they make draws blood, and is 
followed by an inflammation and swelling which last several days. 
These little tormentors are of a black color ; their wings are 
transparent ; and their legs are short, and have a broad whitish 
ring around them. The length of their body rarely exceeds one 
tenth of an inch. They begin to appear in May, and continue 
about six weeks, after which they are no more seen. They are 
followed, however, by swarms of midges, or sand-flies {Simulium 
nocivuni), called no-see-'em, by the Indians of Maine, on ac- 
count of their minuteness. So small are they, that they would 
hardly be perceived, were it not for their wings, which are of a 
whitish color, mottled with black. Towards evening these 
winged atoms come forth, and creep under the clothes of the 
inhabitants, and by their bites, produce an intolerable irritation, 
and a momentary smarting, compared f to that caused by sparks 
of fire. They do not draw blood, and no swelling follows their 
attacks. They are most troublesome during the months of July 
and August. 

The most common of our large gad-flies, or horse-flies, appears 
to be the Tobanus atratus, of Fabricius. It is of a black color, 
and the back is covered with a whitish bloom, like a plum. The 
eyes are very large, and almost meet on the top of the head ; 
they are of a shining purple-black or bronzed black color, with a 
narrow deep black band across the middle, and a broad band of 
the same hue on the lower part. The body of this fly is seven 
eights of an inch or more in length, and the wings expand nearly 
two inches. The Tabanus cinctus^ of Fabricius, or orange- 
belted horse-fly, is not so common, and is rather smaller. It is 
also black, except the first three rings of the hind-body, which 

• " Canadian Naturalist." p. 51. t See Gosse's " Canadian Naturalist." p. 100. 



406 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are orange-colored. The most common of our smaller horse-flies 
is the Tabanus lineola., so named, by Fabricius, because it has a 
whitish line along the top of the hind-body. Besides these flies, 
we have several more kinds of Tabanus, some of which do not 
appear to have been described. These blood-thirsty insects be- 
gin to appear towards the end of June, and continue through the 
summer, sorely tormenting both horses and cattle with their sharp 
bites. Their proboscis, though not usually very long, is armed 
with six stiff, and exceedingly sharp needles, wherewith they 
easily pierce through the toughest hide. It is stated that they 
will not touch a horse whose back has been well washed with a 
sti'ong decoction of walnut leaves. The eyes of these flies are 
very beautiful, and vary in their colors and markings in the differ- 
ent species. 

The golden-eyed forest flies are also distinguished for the bril- 
liancy of their spotted eyes, and for their clouded or banded 
wings. They are much smaller than the horse-flies, but resemble 
them in their habits. Some of them are entirely black {Chrysops 
ferrugaius, Fabricius), others are striped with black and yellow 
{Chrysojjs vittatus, Wiedemann). They frequent woods and 
thickets, in July and August. 

The bee-flies, or Bombylians (Bombyliad^), have a very 
slender proboscis, sometimes exceeding the length of their body. 
They are met with in sunny paths in the woods, in April and 
May. They fly with great swiftness, stop suddenly every little 
while, and, balancing themselves with their long, horizontally 
spread wings, seem to hang suspended in the air. They often 
hover, in this way, over the early flowers, sucking out the honey 
thereof, like humming-birds, with their long bills. Our largest 
bee-fly is the Bombylius cequalis, so named by Fabricius, because 
the wings are divided lengthwise, in their color, into two equal 
parts, the outer part being brownish black, and the inner half col- 
orless and transparent. The body of this insect is short, rounded, 
and covered with yellowish hairs, like a bumblebee. It meas- 
ures three eighths of an inch in length, and the wings expand rather 
more than seven eighths of an inch. 

There are some flies that prey on other insects, catching them 
on the wing or on plants, and sucking out their juices. Some of 



DIPTERA. 407 

these rapacious flies are of great size. The largest one found 
here is the orange-banded Midas [Midas Jilatus*), specimens of 
which are sometimes found measuring an inch and a quarter in 
length, with wings expanding two inches and a quarter. It is 
black, with an orange-colored band on the second ring of the 
hind-body ; and the wings are smoky brown, with a metallic lustre. 
It receives its scientific n^me, Jilatus, signifying threadlike, from 
its antennas, which are long and slender, but they end with an ob- 
long oval knob. Its generical name was also given to it on ac- 
count of its long antenna? ; Midas, in Mythology, being the name 
of a person fabled to have had the long ears of an ass. The 
orange-banded Midas may often be seen flying in the woods in 
July and August, or resting and basking in the sun upon fallen 
trees. Its transformations have never been described. Its larva 
and pupa almost exactly resemble those of the rapacious Asilians 
(AsiLiD^). The larva is a cylindrical, whitish maggot, tapering 
before, and almost rounded behind ; it has only two breathing- 
holes, which are placed in the last ring but one ; and it grows to 
the length of two inches. It lives and undergoes its transforma- 
tions in decayed logs and stumps. The pupa measures about an 
inch and a quarter in length ; it is of a brown color, and nearly 
cylindrical shape ; its tail is forked ; there are eight thorns on the 
forepart of its body ; and each ring of the abdomen is edged with 
numerous sharp teeth, like a saw, all these teeth pointing back- 
wards, except those on the back of the first ring, which are di- 
rected forwards. The pupa pushes itself half way out of the 
stump when the fly is about to come forth, and the latter makes 
its escape by splitting open the back of the pupa-skin. 

In the month of June, there may sometimes be seen, resting 
on the grass or on rotten stumps, in open woods, a large, light- 
brown or drab-col(^ed fly, somewhat like a horse-fly in form, 
but easily distinguished therefrom by two little thorns on the 
hinder part of the thorax; and by the wings, which do not spread 
so much when the insect is at rest. It is heavy and sluggish in 
its motions, and does not attempt to fly away when approached. 
This insect was called Cmnonvjia pallida, the pale Coenomyia, 

* Incorrectly named Mydasfilata, by Fabricius. 



408 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

by Mr. Say, in the Appendix to Keating's "Narrative," and in 
the second volume of the " American Entomology," where it is 
figured. The generical name, signifying a common fly, is rather 
unfortunate, for this is a rare insect. The only specimens known 
to Mr. Say were found by him in a small forest of scattered trees, 
on the Pecktannos river, in Wisconsin Territory. A few have 
been taken in Massachusetts, one cf them on Blue Hill, in Mil- 
ton ; and Mr. Gosse found three specimens, in as many years, in 
Canada. In its transformations this insect is more nearly related 
to the gad-flies and the Asilians than to the soldier-flies, near 
which it has generally been placed ; though it approaches the 
latter in its structure, and in its sluggish habits. The larvse or 
maggots, though not yet discovered, undoubtedly live in the 
ground, or in decayed vegetable substances, like those of the 
horse-flies and other predatory insects ; for Mr. Gosse found 
one of his specimens, on the grass, in the act of emerging from 
the pupa-skin. He has also figured* the pupa, which is of a 
chestnut-brown color, and has transverse rows of spines on the 
abdominal rings. 

Most of the soldier-flies (Stratiomyad^) are armed with 
two thorns or sharp spines on the hinder part of the thorax. 
They form the first family of the flies that undergo their transfor- 
mations within the hardened skin of the larva, which is not thrown 
off till they break through it to come out in the winged state. 
Their proboscis contains, at most, only four bristles, is not fitted 
for piercing, but ends with large fleshy lips, by means whereof 
these flies suck the sweet juices of flowers. Most of them are 
found in wet places, where their larvae live ; some of the latter be- 
ing provided with a tube, in the hinder extremity, which they 
thrust out of the water in order to breathe. The skin of these 
larvae is merely shortened a little, without wholly losing its former 
shape, when the inclosed insects change to pupae ; thereby show- 
ing that this family is truly intermediate between the preceding 
flies, which cast off their larva-skins, and those which retain them, 
and take an oblong oval shape, when they become pupae. Some 
of the soldier-flies [Stratyomys) have a broad oval body, orna- 

* " Canadian .Naturalist." p. 199. 



DIPTERA. 409 

merited with yellow triangles or crescents on each side of the back, 
and their antennsc are somewhat like those of Midas and of the 
gad-flies ; others (Sargus) are slender, often of a brilliant brassy 
green color, with a bristle on the tip of their antenna?. The 
maggots of the latter live in rich mould. 

The Syrphians (Syrphid^) have a fleshy, large-lipped pro- 
boscis, elbowed near the base, and enclosing only four slender 
bristles. They live on the honey of flowers. The last joint of 
their short antennae bears a bristle, which is sometimes feathered. 
Their heads are large and hemispherical. Many of these flies are 
often mistaken for bees or wasps, and some of them lay their 
eggs in the nests of the insects they so closely resemble. Others 
drop their eggs among plant-lice, which their young afterwards 
destroy in great numbers. The larvae of a few are aquatic, and 
are provided with very long, tubular tails, through which they 
breathe, and have been called rat-tailed maggots. Some of the 
largest and most beautiful of these flies live, in the maggot state, 
in rotten wood. One of these rat-tailed flies is often seen on 
windows, in the autumn. It flies with a buzzing noise. Its eyes 
are very large, and of a bright copper-color ; its body is brassy 
green; and there are five gray stripes on the thorax. It meas- 
ures about four tenths of an inch in length. It is the Eristalis 
sincerus of my "Catalogue." The Milesia excentrica, named in 
the same work, strikingly resembles a hornet ; its hind-body be- 
ing banded with black and yellow in the same way. Its head and 
thorax are black, the former margined around the eyes, and the 
latter spotted, with yellowish-white. The legs are ochre-yellow, 
except the shanks and feet of the first pair, which are black. Its 
body measures nearly three quarters of an inch in length. My 
Sphecomyia undata has the slender form of a Sphex or mud-wasp. 
It is of a light brown color; darker on the back, and on the middle 
of the thighs and shanks ; its head is conical, and bears the an- 
tennae on the tip of the cone ; its wings are brown on the outer 
part, with a small transparent spot near the edge, and the inner 
part is transparent in two large wavy spaces. It is about five 
eighths of an inch long, and its wings expand one inch and a quar- 
ter, or njore. It is possible that this singular fly may be the 
Pyrgota undata of Wiedemann. An insect, closely resembling 
52 



410 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

it, is figured in Griffith's translation of Cuvier's "Animal King- 
dom," under the name of Mijopa nigripennis. It is found on 
fences around gardens in May and June. It sits with its wings 
half spread, moves slowly, and flies heavily. My Sphecomyia 
valida, though rather shorter than the preceding, has a thicker 
body. Its color is brownish yellow, and it is striped with brown. 
The wings are transparent, and are mottled with small, dusky 
spots. 

Some of the Conopians ( Conopida) stiW more closely resem- 
ble slender-bodied wasps than the preceding Sphex-flies. Conops 
sagittariciy of Say, (nigricornis ^ Wiedemann) might almost be mis- 
taken for a species of Eumenes. Its 'hind-body is very slender 
and cylindrical next to the thorax, and swells out behind. Its an- 
tenna are long, and thickened towards the end. Its proboscis is 
very long and slender, elbowed at the base, and extends far be- 
yond the head. This fly is of a black color ; the rings of the 
hind-body are edged with white ; the face is yellow ; the legs are 
brownish yellow, shaded with black on the thighs ; and the wings 
are black, with two uncolored and wavy spaces on the inner mar- 
gin. Its body is five eighths of an inch long, and its wings ex- 
pand rather more than three quarters of an inch. This fly may 
be found sucking the honey of flowers in June and July. The 
Greeks gave the name of Conops to some stinging fly or gnat. 
The Conopians undergo their transformations in the bodies of 
bumblebees, their young subsisting on the fat contained within the 
abdomen of their luckless victims. 

A host of flies, forming nearly one third of the whole number 
of species in tlie order Diptera, will be found to have a short 
and soft proboscis, ending with large fleshy lips, enclosing only 
two bristles, and capable of being drawn up within the cavity of 
the mouth. Their antenna? are generally short, hang down over 
the face, and end with a large oval joint, bearing a httle bristle. 
Their larvae, or young, are fleshy, whitish maggots, which never 
cast their skins, but when the pupa-state comes on, shorten, take 
the oblong oval form of an egg, and become brown, dry, and 
hard on the outside. . This immense tribe includes the various 
kinds of flesh-flies, blow-flies, house-flies, dung-flies, flower-flies, 
fruit-flies, two-winged gall-flies, cheese-flies, and many others. 



DIPTERA. 411 

for which we Jiave no common names, hut all composing the 
tribe of Muscans, or MuscADiE. Some of these flies do not 
strictly conform to the foregoing characters of the tribe, in all 
respects ; but the exceptions are few in number, and the most 
remarkable of them will be noticed in the following pages. 

Many flies of this tribe are parasitic in their larva state, their 
young living and undergoing their transformations within the bod- 
ies of other insects, particularly in caterpillars, which they there- 
by destroy. These flies belong chiefly to the family of Ta- 
CHiNAD^, a name applied to them on account of the swiftness of 
their flight. In form they somewhat resemble house-flies ; like 
them they have very large winglets, and their wings spread apart 
when they are at rest. They are easily distinguished, however, 
by the stiff hairs wherewith they are more or less covered, and 
by the bristles on their antennas, which are not usually feathered. 
A large fly of this kind, the Tachina vivid a of my " Catalogue," 
is often seen on fences, and on plants, and sometimes in houses, 
towards the end of June and during the month of July. Its 
large, oval hind-body is of a clear and light red color, with two 
or three black spots, in a row, on the top of it, and a thick row 
of black bristles across each ring. The face is grayish white,- 
like satin, and the eyes are copper-colored. The thorax is gray, 
with brownish lines upon it. The antennae, proboscis, and legs 
are light red. Its body is short and thick, and is about half an 
inch long, and its wings expand rather more than nine tenths of 
an inch. 

Most insects are hatched from eggs which are laid by the 
mother on the substances that are to serve for the food of her 
young. Some flesh-flies produce their young alive, or already 
hatched, and drop them on the dead and putrefying animal matter, 
which they are obliged to consume and remove in the shortest 
possible time. An exception from the usual course among insects 
appears therefore to have been made in favor of these viviparous 
flesh-flies, to enable their young promptly to perform their ap- 
pointed tasks. These insects produce an immense number of 
young, as many as twenty thousand having been observed by 
Reaumur in a single fly.* Our largest viviparous flesh-fly is the 

* -'Memoircs." Vol. IV. p. 417. 



412 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Sarcophaga Georgina of Wiedemann. It appears towards the 
end of June, and continues till the middle of August, or perhaps 
later. Its face is silvery white, and there is an oblong square 
black spot between the eyes, which are copper-colored. The 
thorax is light gray, with seven black stripes upon it. The hind- 
body is nearly conical, has the lustre of satin, and is checkered 
with square spots of black and white, shifting or interchanging 
their colors according to the light wherein they are seen. The 
legs are black, and the hindmost pair are very hairy in the males. 
The female is about half an inch long ; the male is rather smaller. 
In the Sarcophagans, or flesh-eaters, as the name implies, the 
bristles on the antenna3 are feathered. 

The flies that abound in stables in iVugust and September, and 
sometimes enter houses on the approach of rain, might be mis- 
taken for house-flies, were it not for the severity of their bites, 
which are often felt through our clothing, and are generally fol- 
lowed by blood. Upon examination they will be found to differ 
essentially from house-flies in their proboscis, which is very long 
and slender, and projects horizontally beyond the head. The 
bristles on their antennae are feathered above. Cattle suffer sore- 
ly from the piercing bites of these flies, and horses are sometimes 
so much tormented and enraged by them as to become entirely 
ungovernable in harness. The name of this kind of fly is Sto- 
moxys calcitrans; the first word signifying sharp-mouthed, and 
the second kicking, given to the fly from the effect it produces on 
horses. It lays its eggs in dung, where its young are hatched, 
and pass through their transformations. The larvae and pupae do 
not differ much in appearance from those of common house-flies. 

The next three flies have fqathered bristles on their antennas. 
The first of them, a large, buzzing, and stinking meat-fly, named 
JVLusca (^CaUiphora) vomitoria^ is of a blue-black color, with a 
broad, dark blue, and hairy hind-body. It is found all summer 
about slaughter-houses, butchers' stalls, and pantries, which it 
frequents for the purpose of laying its eggs on meat. The eggs 
are commonly called fly-blows ; they hatch in two or three hours 
after they are laid, and the maggots produced from them come to 
their growth in three or four days, after which they creep away 
into some dark crevice, or burrow in the ground, if they can get 



DIPTERA. 413 

at it, turn to egg-shaped piipce, and come out as flies, in a few 
days more ; or they remain unchanged through the winter, if 
they have been hatched late in the summer. A smaller fly, of a 
brilliant blue-green color, with black legs, also lays its eggs on 
meat, but more often on dead animals in the fields. It seems 
hardly to difier from the Musca {Lucilia) Cfcsar of Europe. 
The house-fly of this country has been supposed to be the same 
as the European Musca domestica; but I cannot satisfy myself 
on this point for the want of specimens from Europe. It is pos- 
sible that our sharp-biting stable-flies, the meat-flies, and the 
house-fly, may really be distinct species from those which are 
found in Europe. Our house-fly is the Musca Harpyia, or Har- 
py-fly, of my "Catalogue." It begins to appear in houses in 
July, becomes exceedingly abundant in September, and does not 
disappear till killed by cold weather. It is probable that, like 
the domestic fly of Europe, it lays its eggs in dung, in'which its 
larvce live, and pass through their changes of form. The Amer- 
icans are accused of carelessness in regard to flies, and apparent- 
ly with some reason. But, if these filthy, dung-bred creatures 
swarm in some houses, covering every article of food by day, and 
absolutely blackening the walls by night, in others comparatively 
few are found ; for the tidy house-keeper takes care not to leave 
food of any kind standing about, uncovered, to entice them in, 
and makes a business of driving out the intruders at least once a 
day. If a plateful of strdng green tea, well sweetened, be placed 
in an outer apartment accessible to flies, they will taste of it, and 
be killed thereby, as surely as by the most approved fly-poison. 
In the first volume of " The Transactions of the Entomological 
Society of London," Mr. Spence gives an account of a mode of 
excluding flies from apartments, which has been tried with com- 
plete success in England.^ It consists of netting, made of fine 
worsted or thread, in large meshes, or of threads alone, half of 
an inch or more apart, stretched across the windows. It appears 
that the flies will not attempt to pass through the meshes, or be- 
tween the threads, into a room which is lighted only on one side ; 
but if there are windows on another side of the room they will 
then fly through; such windows should therefore be darkened 
with shutters or thick curtains. 



414 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The Anthomyians, or flower-flies (Anthomyiad^), are easily 
distinguished from the preceding flies, which they otherwise re- 
semble, by the smaller size of their winglets, and by the mesh in 
the middle of their wings, vyhich is long, narrow, and open at the 
end. They are smaller insects than the foregoing, their flight is 
more feeble, their wings, when at rest, do not spread so much, 
and the bristle on the last joint of their antennae is not often 
feathered. Most of them frequent flowers, and are sometimes 
seen sporting together, in large swarms, in the air, like certain 
kinds of gnats. In the larva state some of them live in manure, 
and in rotten vegetable substances ; others are found in the roots 
of living plants, such as onions, radishes, turnips, and even in the 
pulpy parts of leaves and of stems, which they devour. The 
latter have nearly the same form as the maggots of common flies ; 
some of the former are shorter, flattened, and fringed on the sides 
with feathery hairs. 

Many instances are recorded of these fringed maggots having 
been discharged from the human body. They are supposed to 
be the young of a fly named Anthomyia (Homalomyia) scalaris.* 
Flies closely resembling this are sometimes seen in privies, and a 
friend has presented me with one of them, together with the dried 
larva-skin out of which it came. The larva was found in excre- 
ment. The fly is grayish black, and hairy, with large copper- 
colored eyes, which are surrounded by a narrow silvery white 
line. It measures one quarter of an inch in length. The larva- 
skin has two rows of hairs on the back, and two more on each 
side. Another fly, sometimes seen on windows in the autumn, 
is produced, if I mistake not, from a hairy maggot that lives in 
rotten turnips. This fly strikingly resembles the Anthomyia 
canicularis of Europe, and is possibly identical with it. It is of 
a dark gray color, with copper-colored eyes, encircled by a sil- 
very white line, and with a large, semi-transparent, yellowish 
spot on each side of the first three rings of the hind-body. It 
measures rather less than one quarter of an inch in length. The 
fringed maggots of the canicularis are stated by some naturalists 



* For an account of the transformations of the fly of privies, with figures, see 
Swammerdam's " Book of Nature," translated by Hill, Part II., p. 38, plate 38. 



DIPTERA. 415 

to have been obtained from the human body. It is not impossi- 
ble that they may have been swallowed with turnips, or other 
vegetables, eaten when going to decay. 

Radishes, while growing, are very apt to be attacked by mag- 
gots, and rendered unfit to be eaten. These maggots are finally 
transformed to small, ash-colored flies, with a silvery gray face, 
copper-colored eyes, and a brown spot on the forehead of the fe- 
males ; they have some faint brownish lines on the thorax, and a 
longitudinal black line on the hind-body, crossed by narrower 
black lines on the edges of the rings. They vary in size, but 
usually measure rather more than one fifth of an inch in length. 
They finish their transformations, and appear above ground, to- 
w^ards the end of June. The radish-fly is called Anthomyia 
Raphani^ in my " Catalogue," from the botanical name of the 
radish, on the root of which its larvae feed. It closely resembles 
the root-fly {Anthomyia radicuui) of Europe. 

Onions, soon after they come up in the spring, and until they 
are grown to a considerable size, are often observed to turn yel- 
low and die. Many years ago I remember to have seen them 
extensively affected in this way, so that there was a failure of 
three fourths of the plants in a large bed. The cause of their 
death was not suspected at the time, and no examination was 
made for the discovery of insects in them. Since then, I have 
been favored by Mr. Westwood with copies of two articles * by 
him, on the onion-fly [Anthomyia Ceparum), which, in the mag- 
got state, lives in the roots of onion plants in Europe, and causes 
them to wither and perish exactly in the same way as young 
onions do here. Hence there is good reason to believe that 
the failure of our onion crop is caused by the ravages of maggots 
similar to those of the European onion-fly. The latter lays its 
eggs on the leaves of the^onion, close to the earth, so that the 
maggots, when hatched, readily make their way to the heart of 
the onion. The maggots come to their growth in about two 
weeks, turn to pupa? within the onions, and come out as flies a 



* See the " Magazine of Natural History," Vol. VII., p. 425, and the " Gar- 
dener's Magazine," Vol. XIII., p. 241, The same insect is also described and 
figured in Kollar's " Treatise," p. 157, 



416 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

fortnight afterwards. We have a kind of fly, corresponding 
ahuost exactly with the description of the onion-fly. This 
strengthens my behef that our onions suffer from the depredations 
of the maggots of this or of a similar insect. The fly to which 
I allude is often found on windows in the spring. It is ash- 
colored, with black hairs sparingly scattered on its body. It has 
a rust-colored forked spot on the top of its head, and three rust-red 
lines on the thorax ; and the wings are tinged with yellow near 
the shoulders. It measures one fourth of an inch in length. It 
is stated that there are two or three generations of the European 
onion-flies during the summer, and that the late broods pass the 
winter in the pupa state, and are ready to burst forth at the first 
warmth of the following spring. The only practicable plan for 
destroying these insects that has been suggested, consists in pul- 
ling up the onions as soon as they are found to turn yellow, and 
putting them immediately into the fire. 

Some two-winged flies deposit their eggs in the stems, buds, 
and leaves of plants, thereby producing large tumors or galls, 
wherein their young reside. Others lay their eggs in fruits, on 
the pulp of which their maggots live. These gall and fruit flies 
belong to a family called Ortalidians (Ortalidid^^, from a word 
signifying to flap or shake the wings ; for they keep their wings 
in motion nearly all the time, jerking them up and down, and 
twisting them round so that the thick outer edges often come to- 
gether. Some of them are in the habit of suddenly raising their 
wings perpendicularly above their backs, and running along a kw 
steps with them spread like the tail of a peacock. These insects, 
together with several other groups of flies, difllerfrom all the fore- 
going in many respects, although they agree with them in their 
transformations. The forehead is broad in both sexes; their 
winglets are very small or entirely wanting ; their powers of flight 
are feeble ; and they are rarely found sporting on flowers in the 
sunshine, but seem generally to prefer shady and damp places. The 
wings of the Ortalidians are often beautifully variegated, striped, or 
spotted with shades of brown or black. The hind-body in the 
female generally ends with a pointed tube, wherewith the eggs are 
deposited. The little white maggots often found in over ripe 
whortleberries, raspberries, cherries, and other fruits, are the 



DIPTERA. 417 

young of some of these insects. Swellings, or galls, as large as a 
walnut, are often seen on the stems of some of our native Asters 
or starworts. They are caused by the punctures of a fly, which 
lays its eggs, singly, in the stem, when the latter is tender. The 
puncture is followed by a spongy swelling, wherein the maggot, 
hatched from the egg, lives, and passes through its transforma- 
tions. The insect finally comes out in the fly state, through a 
small hole previously made in the gall by the maggot. This fly 
maybe called the gall-fly of the starwort {Tephritis Astcris). 
Its body is about one fifth of an inch long ; it is of a light yellow- 
ish brown color, with paler legs ; the wings are broad, rounded 
at the tip, and clouded with brown in large spots, forming three 
wide, irregular bands across them. 

Many of the smallest flies, belonging to several other groups, 
are placed near the end of the order. One of them has a head 
like a hammer-headed shark, short and very wide, with large glob- 
ular eyes on each side of it. This little insect has been found, 
in considerable numbers, flying near the ground, on the edges of 
banks. It is the Sphyrace.phala brevicornis of Mr. Say, and is 
figured and described in the third volume of his "American En- 
tomology." The well known cheese-maggots are the young of a 
fly {Piophila casei), not more than three twentieths of an inch 
long, of a shining black color, with the middle and hinder le gs 
mostly yellowish, and the wings transparent like glass. Some 
minute flies, belonging to a family called Oscinid.e, are found to 
be very injurious to wheat, rye, and barley, in Europe. One of 
them (Oscinis frit)^ a shining black fly, with yellowish feet, and 
measuring about one tenth of an inch in length, lays its eggs in 
the blossoms of barley, the grains of which afterwards perish in 
consequence of the depredations of the maggots of this fly ; and 
Linnaeus states that a tentli part of the produce of the barley in 
Sweden is thereby annually destroyed. The larvae or maggots of 
Oscinis lineata, Chlorops pumilionis, Chlorops glabra, and other 
flies allied to them, live within the lower part of the stems of 
wheat, rye, apd barley, thereby impoverishing the plants, and 
causing them to become stinted in their growth. They are rather 
larger injects than the frit-fly, and they have black and yellow 
stripes on the thorax. It is highly probable that some of these 
53 



418 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

species, or other Oscinians, with similar habits, may be found in 
the stems of wheat and other grains in this country, and perhaps 
also in the ears. Several kinds of small flies, evidently different 
from the Hessian and wheat flies, have often been observed here, 
in fields of grain, when the plants are in flower ; but their history 
has not yet been investigated, and the insects have not been scien- 
tifically examined and described. From the somewhat vague ac- 
counts that have been given of them, it is evident that they are 
much too large for any of the parasitical insects which attack the 
larvae and eggs of the Hessian and wheat flies ; and they appear 
sometimes to have been mistaken for the latter. In an extract 
from a paper by Mr. Worth, on the Hessian fly, mention is made 
of a pale yellow worm (maggot), about three sixteenths of an inch 
long, having been found by him within the stalks of wheat near 
the root, where its presence was detected by a swelling of the 
part attacked. This was probably the larva of one of the Oscin- 
ians. A careful examination of all the insects that inhabit our 
fields of grain is very much wanted. 

The various insects, improperly called bot-bees, are two- 
wiiiged flies, and belong to the order Diptera, and the family 
CEsTRiDiE, so named from the principal genus in it. Bot-flies 
do not seem to have any mouth or proboscis ; for although these 
parts do really exist in them, the opening of the mouth is ex- 
tremely small, and the proboscis is very short, and is entirely con- 
cealed in it ; so that these insects, while in the winged state, do 
not appear to be able to take any nourishment. They somewhat 
resemble the Syrphians in form and color, and in the large size of 
their heads ; but the eyes are proportionally small, and there is a 
large space between them. The face is swollen or pufi'ed out 
before. The antennae are very short, and almost buried in two 
little holes, close together, on the forehead. The winglets are 
large and entirely cover the poisers. The hind-body of the fe- 
males ends with a conical tube, bent under the body, and used for 
depositing the eggs, which the insect lays whilst flying. The lar- 
vae, or young of bot-flies live in various parts of the bodies of an- 
imals. They are thick, fleshy, whitish maggots, without feet, 
taoering towards the head, which is generally armed with two 
hooks ; and the rings of the body are surrounded with rows of 



DIPTERA. 419 

smaller hooks or prickles. When they are fully grown, they drop 
to the ground and burrow in it a short distance. After this, the 
skin of the maggot becomes a hard and brownish shell, within 
which the insect turns to a pupa, and finally to a fly, and comes 
out by pushing off a little piece like a lid from the small end of 
the shell. 

More than twenty different kinds of bot-flies are already known, 
and several of them are found in this country. Some of them 
have been brought here with our domesticated animals from abroad, 
and have here multiplied and increased. Three of them attack 
the horse. The large bot-fly of the horse (^Gasterophihs equi) 
has spotted wings. She lays her eggs about his knees ; the small 
red-tailed species {G. hcemorrhoidalis), on his lips ; and the 
brown farrier bot-fly (G. veterinus) under his throat, according to 
Dr. Roland Green. By rubbing and biting the parts where the 
eggs are laid, the horse gets the maggots into his mouth, and 
swallows them with his food. The insects then fasten them- 
selves, in clusters, to the inside of his stomach, and live there 
till they are fully grown. The following are stated to be the 
symptoms shown by the horse when he is much infested by these 
insects. He loses flesh, coughs, eats sparingly, and bites his 
sides ; at length he has a discharge from his nose, and these symp- 
toms are followed by a stiffness of his legs and neck, staggering, 
difficulty in breathing, convulsions, and death. No sure and safe 
remedy has yet been found sufficient to remove hots from the 
stomach of the horse. The only treatment to be recommended, 
is copious bleeding, and a free use of mild oils, in the early stages 
of the attack. The preventive means are very simple, consisting 
only in sci'aping off the eggs or nits of the fly every day.* Bracy 
Clark, Esq., who has published some very interesting remarks f 
on the hots of horses and of other animals, maintains that bots 

* See Dr. Green's " Natural History of the Horse-Bee," in Adams's " Medical 
and Agricultural Register," Vol. 1., p. 53 ; and the same in " The New England 
Farmer," Vol. IV., p. 345. 

t " Observations on the Genus CEstrus," in the " Transactions of the Linnean 
Society," Vol. III., p. 289, with figures; "On the insect called Oistros by the 
Ancients," in Vol. XV. of the same work ; and " An Essay on the Bots of Horses 
and other Animals." 1 vol. 4to. Lond. 1815. 



420 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

are rather beneficial than injurious to the animals they infest. 
His principal work on this subject I have not yet seen. The 
maggots of the CEstrus bovis^ or ox bot-fly, live in large open 
boils, sometimes called wornils or wurmals, that is, worm-holes, 
on the backs of cattle. The fly is ratiier smaller than the horse 
bot-fly, although it comes from a much larger maggot. The 
sheep bot-fly [Cephalemyin ons) lays its eggs in the nostrils of 
sheep, and the maggots crawl from thence into the hollows in the 
bones of the forehead. Deer are also afflicted by bots peculiar 
to them. Our native hare, or rabbit, as it is commonly called, 
sometimes has very large bots, which live under the skin of his 
back. The fly {(Estrus buccatus) is as big as our largest humble- 
bee, but is not hairy. It is of a reddish black color ; the face 
and the sides of the hind-body are covered with a blueish white 
bloom ; there are many small black dots on the latter, and six or 
eight on the face. This fly measures seven eighths of an inch, or 
more in length, and its wings expand about three quarters of aa 
inch. It is rarely seen ; and my only specimen was taken in the 
month of July, many years ago. 

At the very end of this order is to be placed a remarkable 
group of insects, which seems to connect the flies with the true 
ticks and spiders. Some of these insects have wings ; but others 
have neither wings nor poisers. Of the winged kinds there is 
one (^Hippobosca equina) that nestles in the hair of the horse ; 
others are bird-flies (Omiiliomyia), and live in the plumage of al- 
most all kinds of birds. The wingless kinds have sometimes 
been called spider-flies, from their shape ; such are sheep-ticks 
{Mcllophagus avis), and bat-ticks [Ni/ctcribia). These singular 
creatures are not produced from eggs, in the usual way among 
insects, but are brought forth in the pupa state, enclosed in the 
egg-shaped skin of the larva, which is nearly as large as the body 
of the parent insect. This egg-like body is soft and white at first, 
but soon becomes hard and brown. It is notched at one end, and 
out of this notched part the inclosed insect makes its way, when 
it arrives at maturity. 

The flea (Pulex), may almost be considered as a wingless kind 
of fly. Its proboscis seems to be intermediate in its formation 
between that of flies and of bugs ; its antennffi are concealed in 



DIPTERA. 421 

holes in the sides of its head, hke those of certain water-bugs 
(Nepa and B el ostoma), and somewhat resemble them in shape; 
while the transformations of the flea are not very much unlike 
those of the flies, whose maggots cast off their skins on becoming 
pupae. 

The foregoing remarks, on the structure, habits, and transfor- 
mations of Dipterous insects, have been somewhat extended be- 
yond what was originally designed, in order to make amends for the 
want of information relating to the history of the gnats and flies 
which are injurious to vegetation. The consideration of the lat- 
ter has been reserved to the last, and the printing of this portion 
of my essay has been delayed, in the hope that additional and 
more valuable materials would be obtained. It is a source of re- 
gret to me that I have nothing original to offer on this subject, 
not having had an opportunity to watch the growth and changes 
of these destructive insects myself. Very little success has at- 
tended my efforts to collect new materials for the history of the 
insects that are injurious to wheat and other cultivated grains ; 
and my numerous private letters and public communications, so- 
liciting information, have procured for me only a few facts in an- 
swer to them. In looking over a great number of volumes for 
papers relative to these insects, my labors have been rewarded, 
as it were, with only a few scattered grains among bushels of chaff. 

The far-famed Hessian fly and the wheat-fly of Europe, and 
of this country, are small gnats or midges, and belong to the 
family called CECiDOMYiADiE, or gall-gnats. The insects of this 
family are very numerous, and most of them, in the maggot 
state, live in galls or unnatural enlargements of the stems, leaves, 
and buds of plants, caused by the punctures of the winged in- 
sects in laying their eggs. The Hessian fly, wheat-fly, and 
some others differ from ihe majority in not producing such altera- 
tions in plants. The proboscis of these insects is very short, and 
does not contain the piercing bristles found in the long proboscis 
of the biting gnats and mosquitos. Their antennas are long, com- 
posed of many little, bead-like joints, which are larger in the 
males than in the other sex ; and each joint is surrounded with 
short li^airs. Their eyes are kidney-shaped. Their legs are 
rather long and very slender. Their wings have only two, three, 



422 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

or four veins in them, and are fringed with little hairs around the 
edges ; when not in use, they are generally carried flat on the 
back. The hind-body of the females often ends with a retrac- 
tile, conical tube, wherewith they deposit their eggs. Their 
young are little, footless maggots, tapering at each end, and gen- 
erally of a deep yellow or orange color. They live on the 
juices of plants, and undergo their transformations either in these 
plants, or in the ground. 

The Hessian fly was scientifically described by Mr. Say, in 
1817, under the name of d^cidomyia destructor.* It obtained 
its common name from a supposition that it was brought to this 
country, in some straw, by the Hessian troops under the com- 
mand of Sir William Howe in the war of the Revolution, f This 
supposition, however, has been thought to be erroneous, because 
the early inquiries made to discover the Hessian fly in Germany 
were unsuccessful ; and, in consequence thereof, Sir Joseph 
Banks, in his report to the British Government, in 1789, stated 
that " no such insect could be found to exist in Germany or 
any other part of Europe." J It appears, however, that the 
same insect, or one exactly like it in habits, had been long known 
in Europe ; an account of it may be found in Duhamel's " Prac- 
tical Treatise of Husbandry," § and in a communication J made 
to the Duke of Dorset, in 1788, by the Royal Society of 
Agriculture of France. In the year 1833 the wheat in Hungary 
was considerably injured by an insect of the same kind, supposed 
to be the Hessian fly by the Baron Kollar. || Moreover, Mr. E. 
C. Herrick, of New Haven, Connecticut, has recently published 
an account IF of the discovery of the true Hessian fly, by Mr. 
James D. Dana, in Minorca, near Toulon in France, and in the 
vicinity of Naples. Nothing has yet been found relative to the 
existence of the Hessian fly in America before the Revolution. 

*" Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia." Vol. I., 
p. 45. 

\ Dobson's " Encyclopcedia." Vol. VIII., p. 491. 

\ " Encyclopaedia Britannica," and Dobson's " Encyclopaedia." Vol. VIII., ar- 
ticle Hessian Fly. 

§ p. 90. 4to. Lond. 1759. See also his " Elements of Agriculture, " Vol. I., 
p. 269. 8vo. Lond. 1664. 

II « Treatise," p. 118. 

H Silliman's " American Journal of Science," Vol. XLI., p. 153. 



DIPTERA. 423 

It was first observed in the year 1776, in the neighbourhood of 
Sir William Howe's debarkation on Staten Island, and at Flat 
Bush, on the west end of Long Island. Having multiplied in 
these places, the insects gradually spread over the southern parts 
of New York and Connecticut, and continued to proceed inland 
at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles a year. They reached 
Saratoga, two hundred miles from their original station, in 1789. 
Dr. Chapman says, that they were found west of the Alleghany 
mountains in 1797 ; from their progress through the country, 
having apparently advanced about thirty miles every summer. 
Wheat, rye, barley, and even timothy grass were attacked by 
them ; and so great were their ravages in the larva state, that the 
cultivation of wheat was abandoned in many places where they 
had established themselves.* In a communication by Mr. J. W. 
Jeffreys, published in the sixth volume of Buel's " Cultivator," 
it is stated, that soon after the battle of Guilford, in North Caro- 
lina, the wheat crops were destroyed by the Hessian fly in 
Orange county, through which the British army, composed in 
part of Hessian soldiers, had previously passed. Although it 
is possible that, in this instance, the chinch bug may have been 
mistaken for the Hessian fly, the remark shows how prevalent 
was the belief respecting the introduction of the latter. The 
foregoing statements, taken in connexion with the habits of the 
Hessian fly, induce me to think that the common opinion relative 
to its origin is deserving of some credit, although we are as yet 
without any positive evidence of the existence of this insect in 
Germany. 

The following brief history of the habits and transformations 
of the Hessian fly will be found to agree essentially with the ex- 
cellent observations on this insect, written in the year 1797, by 
Dr. Isaac Chapman, and published in the fifth volume of the 
" Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agricul- 
ture." Mr. Herrick has kindly permitted me to make free use 
of his valuable account of this insect, contained in the forty-first 
volume of " The American Journal of Science," and of other 

* "Encyclopsedia Britannica," and Dobson's " Encyclopaedia," Vol. VIII., ar- 
ticle Hessian Fly. 



424 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

information communicated by him to me in various letters. The 
latter gentleman has spent some time in carefully observing the 
habits of the fly, during many years in succession ; and, having 
fitted himself for the task by the study of the natural history of 
insects in general, his statements may be implicitly relied upon. 
Moreover they are corroborated by the observations of many 
other persons, published in various works, which I have consult- 
ed in the course of my investigations. Nor have I neglected to 
examine every thing on this insect that has fallen under my no- 
tice ; and shall hereafter allude to some of the contradictory 
statements that have been published relative to certain parts of its 
economy. 

The head and thorax of this fly are black. The hind-body is 
tawny, and covered with fine grayish hairs. The wings are 
blackish, but are more or less tinged with yellow at the base, 
where also they are very narrow ; they are fringed with short 
hairs, and are rounded at the end. The body measures about 
one tenth of an inch in length, and the wings expand one quarter 
of an inch, or more. It is a true Cecidomyia^ differing from 
Lasioptcra in the shortness of the first joint of its feet, and in 
the greater length of its antennae, the bead-like swellings whereof 
are also more distant from each other. Two broods or genera- 
tions are brought to maturity in the course of a year, and the flies 
appear in the spring and autumn, but rather earlier in the South- 
ern and Middle States than in New England. The transformations 
of some in each brood appear to be retarded beyond the usual time, 
as is found to be the case with many other insects ; so that the life 
of these individuals, from the egg to the winged state, extends to 
a year or more in length, whereby the continuation of the species 
in after years is made more sure. It has frequently been assert- 
ed that the flies lay their eggs on the grain in the ear ; but wheth- 
er this be true or not, it is certain that they do lay their eggs on 
the young plants, and long before the grain is ripe ; for many 
persons have witnessed and testified to this fact. In the New 
England States, winter wheat, as it is called, is usually sown 
about the first of September. Towards the end of this month, 
and in October, when the grain has sprouted, and begins to show 
a leaf or two, the flies appear in the fields, and, having paired, 



DIPTERA. 425 

begin to lay their eggs, in which business they are occupied for 
several weeks. The following interesting account of the manner 
in which this is done was written by Mr. Edward Tilghman, of 
Queen Ann County, Maryland, and was published in the eighth 
volume of " The Cultivator," in May, 1841. " By the sec- 
ond week of October, the first sown wheat being well up, and 
having generally put forth its second and third blades, I resorted 
to my field in a fine warm forenoon, to endeavour to satisfy my- 
self, by ocular demonstration, whether the fly did deposit the 
egg on the blades of the growing plant. Selecting a favorable 
spot to n)ake my observation, I placed myself in a reclining po- 
sition in a furrow, and had been on the watch but a minute or 
two, before I discovered a number of small black flies alighting 
and sitting on the wheat plants aiound me, and presently one set- 
tled on the ridged surface of a blade of a plant completely within 
my reach and distinct observation. She immediately began de- 
positing her eggs in the longitudinal cavity between the little 
ridges of the blade. I could distinctly see the eggs ejected from 
a kind of tube or sting. After she had deposited eight or ten 
eggs, I easily caught her upon the blade, and wrapped her up in 
a piece of paper. I then proceeded to take up the plant, with 
as much as I conveniently could of the circumjacent earth, and 
wrapped it all securely in a piece of paper. After that 1 con- 
tinued my observations on the flies, caught several similarly oc- 
cupied, and could see the eggs uniformly placed in the longitudi- 
nal cavities of the blades of the wheat ; their appearance being 
that of minute reddish specks. My own mind being thus com- 
pletely and fully satisfied as to the mode in which the egg was 
deposited, I proceeded directly to my dwelling, and put the 
plant with the eggs upon it in a large glass tumbler, adding a little 
water to the earth, and^ secured the vessel by covering it with 
paper so that no insect could get access to the interior. The 
paper was sufficiently perforated with pin holes for the admission 
of air. The tumbler with its contents was daily watched by 
myself to discover the hatching of the eggs. About the middle 
of the fifteenth day from the deposit of the eggs, I was so fortu- 
nate as^ to discover a very small maggot or worm, of a reddish 
cast, making its way with considerable activity down the blade, 
54 



426 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

and saw it till it disappeared between the blade and stem of the 
plant. This, I have no doubt, was the produce of one of the 
eggs, and would, I presume, have hatched much sooner, had the 
plant remained in the field. It was my intention to have carried 
on the experiment, by endeavouring to hatch out the insect from 
the flax-seed state into the perfect fly again ; but being called 
from home, the plant was suffered to perish. The fly that I 
caught on the blade of the wheat, as above stated, I enclosed in 
a letter to Mr. John S. Skinner, the editor of the ' American 
Farmer,' of Baltimore, who pronounced it to be a genuine Hes- 
sian fly, and identical in appearance with others recently received 
from Virginia." Dr. Chapman agrees with this writer in saying, 
that the Hessian fly lays her eggs in the small creases of the 
young leaves of the wheat. Mr. Havens, in an article on this 
insect, which will again be referred to, states, that the fly lays 
her eggs on the leaves. In the fortieth number of " The Con- 
necticut Farmer's Gazette," Mr. Herrick says, " I have re- 
peatedly, both in autumn and in spring, seen the Hessian fly in 
the act of depositing eggs on wheat, and have always found, that 
she selects for this purpose the leaves of the young plant. The 
eggs are laid in various numbers on the upper surface of the strap- 
shaped portion (or blade) of the leaf." His remarks in Professor 
Silliman's Journal are to the same effect. Other authorities on 
this point might be mentioned ; but the foregoing are sufficient, 
in my opinion, to establish the fact, that the Hessian fly lays her 
eggs on the leaves of wheat soon after the plants are up. " The 
number on a single leaf," says Mr. Herrick, " is often twenty 
or thirty, and sometimes much greater. In these cases many of 
the larvae must perish. The egg is about a fiftieth of an inch 
long, and four thousandths of an inch in diameter, cylindrical, 
translucent, and of a pale red color." Mr. Tilghman was cor- 
rect in supposing that the eggs would hatch in less than fifteen 
days, under favorable circumstances ; for, if the weather be warm, 
they commonly hatch in four days after they are laid. The mag- 
gots, when they first come out of the shells, are of a pale red 
color. Forthwith they crawl down the leaf, and work their way 
between it and the main stalk, passing downwards till they come 
to a joint, just above which they remain, a little below the sur- 



DIPTERA. 427 

face of the ground, with the head towards the root of the plant. 
Having thus fixed themselves upon the stalk, they become sta- 
tionary, and never move from the place till their transformations 
are completed. They do not eat the stalk, neither do they pen- 
etrate within it, as some persons have supposed, but they lie 
lengthwise upon its surface, covered by the lower part of the 
leaves, and are nourished wholly by the sap, which they appear 
to take by suction. They soon lose their reddish color, turn 
pale, and will be found to be clouded with whitish spots ; and 
through their transparent skins a greenish stripe may be seen in 
the middle of their bodies. As they increase in size, and grow 
plump and firm, they become imbedded in the side of the stem, 
by the pressure of their bodies upon the growing plant. One 
maggot thus placed seldom destroys the plant ; but, when two or 
three are fixed in this manner around the stem, they weaken and 
impoverish the plant, and cause it to fall down, or to wither and 
die. They usually come to their full size in five or six weeks, 
and then measure about three twentieths of an inch in length. 
Their skin now gradually hardens, becomes brownish, and soon 
changes to a bright chestnut color. This change usually hap- 
pens about the first of December, when the insect may be said 
to enter on the pupa state, for afier this time it takes no more 
nourishment. Mr. Herrick informs me, that the brown and 
leathery skin, within which the maggot has changed to a pupa 
or chrysalis, is long egg-shaped, smooth, and marked with 
eleven transverse lines, and measures one eighth of an inch 
in length. In this form it has been commonly likened to a 
flax-seed. It appears then, from the remarks of Dr. Chap- 
man, Mr. Herrick, and other careful observers, that the maggots 
of the Hessian fly do not cast off their skins in order to become 
pupa5, wherein they differ from the larvae of most other gnats, 
and agree with those of common flies ; neither do they spin co- 
coons, as some of the Cecidomyians are supposed to do. Mr. 
Herrick, in one of his letters, observes, that " the pupa 
gradually cleaves from the dried skin of the larva, and, in the 
course of two or three weeks, is wholly detached " from it. 
Still inclosed within this skin, which thus becomes a kind of co- 
coon or shell for the pupa, it remains throughout the winter, 



428 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

safely lodged in its bed on the side of the stem, near the root of 
the plant, and protected from the cold by the dead leaves. To- 
wards the end of April and in the forepart of May, or as soon 
as the weather becomes warm enough in the spring, the insects 
are transformed to flies. They make their escape from their 
winter quarters by breaking through one end of their shells and 
the remains of the leaves around them. In the " Observations 
on the Hessian fly," written by Jonathan N. Havens, Esq., and 
published in the first volume of the " Transactions of the So- 
ciety for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures 
in New York," it is stated, that " whenever the fly has been 
hatched in the house, it always comes forth from its brown case, 
wrapt in a thin white skin, which it soon breaks, and is then at 
liberty " ; and Mr. Havens supposes, that the same thing occurs 
when the transformation takes place abroad. Nothing of the 
kind, however, has been recorded by any other writer on this in- 
sect. Very soon after the flies come forth in the spring, they 
are prepared to lay their eggs on the leaves of the wheat sown in 
the autumn before, and also on the spring-sown wheat, that be- 
gins, at this time, to appear above the surface of the ground. 
They continue to come forth and lay their eggs for the space of 
three weeks, after which they entirely disappear from the fields. 
The maggots, hatched from these eggs, pass along the stems of 
the wheat, nearly to the roots, become stationary, and turn to 
pupffi in June and July. In this state they are found at the time 
of harvest, and, when the grain is gathered, they remain in the 
stubble in the fields. To this, however, as Mr. Havens remarks, 
there are some exceptions ; for a few of the insects do not pass 
so far down the side of the stems as to be out of the way of the 
sickle when the grain is reaped, and consequently will be gath- 
ered and carried away with the straw. Most of them are trans- 
formed to flies in the autumn, but others remain unchanged in the 
stubble or straw till the next spring. Hereby, says Mr. Havens, 
" it appears evident, that they may be removed from their natural 
situation in the field, and be kept alive long enough to be car- 
ried across the Atlantic ; from which circumstance it is possible 
that they might have been imported " in straw from a foreign 
country. In the winged state, these flies, or more properly 



DIPTERA. 429 

gnats, are very active, and, though very small and seemingly 
feeble, are able to fly to a considerable distance in search of 
fields of young grain. Their principal migrations take place in 
August and September in the Middle States, where they undergo 
their final transformations earlier than in New England. There, 
too, they sometimes take wing in immense swarms, and, being 
probably aided by the wind, are not stopped in their course 
either by mountains or rivers. On their first appearance in Penn- 
sylvania they were seen to pass the Delaware like a cloud. 
Being attracted by light, they have been known, during the wheat 
harvest, to enter houses in the evening in such numbers as se- 
riously to annoy the inhabitants.* 

The old discussion, concerning the place where the Hessian 
fly lays her eggs, has lately been revived, in consequence of a 
communication made by Miss Margaretta H. Morris, of Ger- 
mantown, Pennsylvania, to " the American Philosophical So- 
ciety," of Philadelphia. The following remarks upon it are 
extracted from a Report made to the same Society, and pub- 
lished in their "Proceedings" for November and December, 
1840. " Miss Morris believes she has established that the 
ovum (egg) of this destructive insect is deposited in the seed of 
the wheat, and not in the stalk or culm. She has watched the 
progress of the animal since June, 1836, and has satisfied her- 
self that she has frequently seen the larva within the seed. She 
has also detected the larva, at various stages of its progress, from 
the seed to between the body of the stalk and the sheath of the 
leaves. According to her observations, the recently hatched 
larva penetrates to the centre of the straw, where it may be found 
of a pale greenish white semitransparent appearance, in form 
somewhat resembling a silk worm. From one to six of these 
have been found at various heights from the seed to the third 
joint." Miss Morris's communication has not yet been published 
in full ; but, from the foregoing report, we are led to infer, that 
the egg, being sowed with the grain, is hatched in the ground, 
and that the maggot afterwards mounts from the seed through the 

* British and Dobson's " Encyclopaedia," and Colonel Morgan's letter in Ca- 
rev's '■ American Museum," Vol. II., p. 298. 



430 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

middle of the stem, and, having reached a proper height, escapes 
from the liollow of the straw to the outside, where it takes the 
pupa or flax-seed state. The fact that the Hessian fly does or- 
dinarily lay her eggs on the young leaves of wheat, barley, and 
rye, both in the spring and in the autumn, is too well authenti- 
cated to admit of any doubt. If, therefore, the observations of 
Miss Morris are found to be equally correct, they will serve to 
show, still more than the foregoing history, how variable and ex- 
traordinary is the economy of this insect, and how great are the 
resources wherewith it is provided for the continuation of its kind. 
Various means have been recommended for preventing or less- 
ening the ravages of the Hessian fly ; but they have hitherto 
failed, either because they have not been adapted to the end in 
view, or because they have not been universally adopted ; and it 
appears doubtful, whether any of them will ever entirely exter- 
minate the insect. It is stated in the before mentioned Report 
of " the Philosophical Society," that Miss Morris advises ob- 
taining " fresh seed from localities in which the fly has not made 
its appearance," and that " by this means the crop of the following 
yearvvill be uninjured ; but in order to avoid the introduction of 
straggling insects of the kind from adjacent fields, it is requisite 
that a whole neighbourhood should persevere in this precaution 
for two or more years in succession." " This result," Miss Mor- 
ris says, " was obtained, in part, in the course of trials made by 
Mr. Kirk, of Buck's County, Pennsylvania, with some seed- 
wheat from the Mediterranean, in and since the year 1837. His 
first crop was free from the fly ; but it was gradually introduced 
from adjacent fields, and, in the present year (1840), the mis- 
chief has been considerable." In other hands this course has 
proved of no use whatever. Not to mention other instances, the 
following appears to be conclusive on this point. About forty 
years ago, Mr. Garret Bergen, of Brooklyn, New York, pro- 
cured two bushels of wheat from the Genesee country, then an 
uninfected district, which he sowed in a field adjoining a piece 
seeded with grain of his own gathering. Both pieces were se- 
verely damaged by the Hessian fly, which could not have hap- 
pened, in the same season, if the eggs of the insect are laid only 
on the grain. A few years ago he soaked his seed-wheat in 



DIPTERA. 431 

strong pickle, and the crop was comparatively free from the fly. 
In 1839 he tried this experiment again, but not with similar suc- 
cess. In 1840 he sowed without previously soaking the grain, 
and his crop was uninjured. He says, moreover, that he has 
uniformly found the grain most affected in spots, usually near the 
edges of the field, where long grass and weeds grew, which af- 
forded shelter and protection to the fly. This fact, he thinks, 
affords another proof, that the egg is not deposited in the grain. 
I regret that my limits will not permit me to extract the whole of 
Mr. Bergen's interesting remarks, which may be found in number 
eight, of the eighth volume of " The Cultivator," published in 
Albany in August, 1841. The best modes of preventing the 
ravages of the Hessian fly are thus stated by Mr. Herrick.* 
" The stouter varieties of wheat ought always to be chosen, and 
the land should be kept in good condition. If fall wheat is sown 
late, some of the eggs will be avoided, but risk of winter-killing 
the plants will be incurred. If cattle are permitted to graze the 
wheat fields during the fall, they will devour many of the eggs. 
A large number of the pupae may be destroyed by burning the 
wheat-stubble immediately after harvest, and then ploughing and 
harrowing the land. This method will undoubtedly do much 
good. As the Hessian fly also lays its eggs, to some extent, 
on rye and barley, these crops should be treated in a similar man- 
ner." It is found that luxuriant crops more often escape injury 
than those that are thin and light. Steeping the grain and rolling 
it in plaster or lime tends to promote a rapid and vigorous growth, 
and will therefore prove beneficial. Sowing the fields with wood 
ashes, in the proportion of two bushels to an acre, in the autumn, 
and again in the first and last weeks in April, and as late in the 
month of May as the sower can pass over the wheat without in- 
jury to it, has been found useful. t Favorable reports have been 
made upon the practice of allowing sheep to feed off the crop 
late in the autumn, and it has also been recommended to turn 
them into the fields again in the spring, in order to retard the 
growth of the plant till after the fly has disappeared. J Too 

* '' American Journal of Science," Vol. XLI., p. 158. 

t " Gultivator," Vol. V., p. 59. 

t " Cultivator," Vol. IV., p. 110, and Vol. V., p. 49. 



432 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

much cannot be said in favor of a judicious management of the 
soil, feeding off the crop by cattle in the autumn, and burning 
the stubble after harvest ; a proper and general attention to which 
will materially lessen the evils arising from the depredations of 
this noxious insect. 

Fortunately our efforts will be aided by a host of parasitical in- 
sects, which are found to prey upon the eggs, the larvae, and the 
pupae of the Hessian fly. Mr. Herrick states,* that, in this part 
of the country, a very large proportion, probably more than nine 
tenths, of every generation of this fly is thus destroyed. One of 
these parasites was made known by Mr. Say, in the first volume 
of the " Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 
delphia" ; and the interesting discovery of three more kinds is 
due to the exertions of Mr. Herrick. They are all minute Hy- 
menopterous insects, similar in their habits to the true Ichneu- 
mon-flies. The chief parasite of the pupa is the Eurytoma de- 
structor (^Ceraphron destructor, of Say), a shining black four- 
winged fly, about one tenth of an inch in length. This has often 
been mistaken for the Hessian fly, from being seen in wheat- 
field's, in vast numbers, and from its being found to come out of 
the dried larva skin of that fly. In the month of June, when the 
maggot of the Hessian fly has taken the form of a flax-seed, the 
Eurytoma pierces it, through the sheath of the leaf, and lays an 
egg in the minute hole thus made. From this egg is hatched a 
little maggot, which devours the pupa of the Hessian fly, and 
then changes to a chrysalis within the shell of the latter, through 
which it finally eats its way, after being transformed to a fly. 
This last change takes place both in the autumn and in the follow- 
ing spring. Some of the females of this or of a closely allied 
species of Eurytoma come forth from the shells of the Hessian . 
fly, without wings, or with only very short and imperfect wings, 
in which form they somewhat resemble minute ants. Two more 
parasites, which Mr. Herrick has not yet described, also destroy 
the Hessian fly, while the latter is in the pupa or flax-seed state. 
Mr. Herrick says, that the egg-parasite of the Hessian fly is a 
species of Platygaster, that it is very abundant in the autumn, 

* " American Journal of Science," Vol. XLL, p. 156. 



DIPTERA. 433 

when it lays its own eggs, four or five together, in a single egg of 
the Hessian fly. This, it appears, does not prevent the latter 
from hatching, but the maggot of the Hessian fly is unable to go 
through its transformation, and dies after taking the flax-seed 
form. Meanwhile its intestine foes are hatched, come to their 
growth, spin themselves little brownish cocoons within the skin 
of their victim, and, in due time, are changed to winged insects, 
and eat their way out. Such are some of the natural means, 
provided by a benevolent Providence, to check the ravages of 
the destructive Hessian fly. If we are humiliated by the reflec- 
tion, that the Author of the universe should have made even small 
and feeble insects the instruments of His power, and that He 
should occasionally permit them to become the scourges of our 
race, ought we not to admire His wisdom in the formation of 
the still more humble agents that are appointed to arrest the work 
of destruction. 

In the years 1829 and 1830 several communications were pub- 
lished in the eighth volume of Fessenden's " New England Far- 
mer," * respecting a disease of barley straw, produced by the 
punctures of insects. The first account of this disease, that has 
fallen under my notice, is contained in an extract from a letter, 
dated August 16th, 1829, from the Honorable John Merrill, of 
Newburyport, to Mr. Fessenden ; wherein it is stated, that the 
barley, in the neighbourhood of Newburyport, yielded only a 
very small crop ; on some farms not much more than the seed 
sown. Most of the stalks were found to have a number of small 
worms within them, near to the second joint, and had become 
hardened in the part attacked, from the interruption of the cir- 
culation of the sap. During several years previous to this date, 
the barley crops, in various parts of Essex and Middlesex coun- 
ties, were more or less-injured in the same way ; and, in some 
places, the cultivation of this grain was given up in conse- 
quence thereof. It was supposed that the insects, producing 
this disease, were imported from Bremen, or some other port in 
the north of Europe, in some barley that was sovi^n in the vicinity 
of Newbury, three or four years before 1829.f The worms or 

* PageU 43, 138, 217, 299, 330, and 402. Also Vol. IX., p. 2, and Vol. X., p. 11. 
t " New England Farmer," Vol. VIII., p. 217. 
55 



434 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

maggots, were found, by John M. Gourgas, Esq., of Weston, 
Massachusetts, to be transformed to small flies, which were 
thought, by some persons, to be the same as the Hessian flies. 
In the summer of 1831, myriads of these flies were found alive 
in straw beds in Gloucester ; the straw having been taken from 
the fields the year before. An opinion at that time prevailed, 
that the troublesome humors, wherewith many persons were then 
afflicted, were occasioned by the bites of these flies ; and it is 
stated that the straw beds in Lexington, being found to be in- 
fested with the same insects, were generally burnt.* If any in- 
convenience really arose from sleeping on these beds, it is far 
more likely to have been occasioned by the bites or stings of 
parasitical insects, than by those of any insect like the Hessian 
fly. That vast numbers of parasitical insects, closely resembling 
the Eurytoma destructor^ come out of the diseased straw will be 
shown hereafter. Mr. Gourgas observes,! that when the barley 
is about eight or ten inches high, the effects of the disease in 
it begin to be visible by a sudden check in the growth of the 
plants, and the yellow color of their lower leaves. If the butts 
of the straw are now examined, they will be found to be irregu- 
larly swollen, and discolored, between the second and third 
joints, and, instead of being hollow, are rendered solid, hard, and 
brittle, so that the stem above the diseased part is impoverished, 
and seldom produces any grain. Suckers, however, shoot out 
below, and afterwards yield a partial crop, seldom exceeding one 
half the usual quantity of grain. " It is evident," says Mr. 
Gourgas, " that the soundness of the grain, raised in a blighted 
field, is not aflected thereby in the slightest degree ; the seed 
(eggs) to perpetuate the disease from year to year is lodged in 
the straw, which, when hatched, are the worms " before men- 
tioned. Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Danvers, states, J that these 
worms are about one tenth of an inch in length, and of a yellow 
or straw color ; and that, in the month of November, they ap- 
peared to have passed to the chrysalis state. They live through 
the winter unchanged in the straw, many of them in the stubble in 

* " New England Fanner," Vol. X , p. 11. t The same, Vol. VJII., p. 299. 

t The same, p. 138. 



DIPTERA. 435 

the field, while others are carried away when the grain is harvested. 
When the barley is threshed, numerous snaall pieces of diseased 
straw, too hard to be broken by the flail, will be found among the 
grain. Some of these may be separated by the winnowing ma- 
chine, but many others are too large and heavy to be winnowed 
out, and remain with the grain, from which they can only be re- 
moved by the slow process of picking them out by hand. 

In the winter of 1829, Cheever INewhall, Esq. furnished me 
with a few pieces of diseased barley straw, each of which con- 
tained several, small, whitish maggots. Since that time this af- 
fection of the barley has not again fallen under my notice, though 
I have reason to think that it continues to prevail in many parts 
of Massachusetts. The following account of my observations on 
the insects in the barley straw was published in the " New Eng- 
land Farmer," * in July, 1830. Each maggot was imbedded in 
the thickened and solid substance of the stem, in a little longitudi- 
nal hollow, of the shape of its own body ; and its presence was 
known by an oblong swelhng upon the surface. In some pieces 
of straw the swellings were so numerous as greatly to disfigure 
the stem, the circulation in which must have been very much 
checked if not destroyed. Early in the following spring these 
maggots entered the pupa or chrysalis state, and on the fifteenth 
of June the perfected insects began to make their escape through 
minute perforations in the straw, which they gnawed for this pur- 
pose. Seven of these litile holes were counted in a piece of 
straw only half an inch in length. The insects continued to re- 
lease themselves from their confinement till the fifth of July, after 
which no more were seen. Much to ray surprise they proved 
to be minute, four-winged Ichneumon-flies, which are parasitical, 
or prey, in the larva state, on the bodies of other insects. I 
had hoped to have obtained the true culprits, the cause of the 
disease, supposing that the latter were allied to the Hessian fly ; 
but these little insects, while in the larva state, had destroyed 
them all, and, having finished their appointed task, and undergone 
their tranformations, now made their escape from the straw in the 

winged form. The scientific name, given to this newly dis- 

— k, . . 

^ Vol. IX., p. 2. 



436 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

covered parasite, was Euryioma Hordei, so called from Hordeum^ 
the Latin name for barley. It is very much like the parasite 
(Eurytoma destructor) of the Hessian fly, described by Mr. 
Say, but is rather larger, of a jet black color, except the legs, 
which are blackish, with pale yellow joints. The head and tho- 
rax are somewhat rough, and slightly hairy ; the hind-body is 
smooth and polished. The female is thirteen hundredths of an 
inch long ; the male is rather smaller. It often moves by little 
leaps, but the hindmost thighs are not thickened. This minute 
insect is to be reckoned among our friends, being appointed, by 
an all-wise and provident Creator, to check the increase of the 
destructive fly that attacks our barley. Though disappointed in 
my attempts to obtain the latter, in its perfected state, I hail with 
pleasure the appearance of its mortal enemy. 

Although the barley-fly has not yet been seen by me, there 
does not exist the smallest doubt in my mind that it is a two- 
winged gnat, like the Hessian fly and wheat-fly. Any one, who 
will compare the history of the two latter with what is known of 
the barley insect, will arrive at the same conclusion. Both the 
Hessian fly and the barley insect attack the culms or straw of 
grain, which they injure to a great extent ; and both have a simi- 
lar four-winged parasite appropriated to them. In addition to 
this statement, the following conjectures, in default of facts, may 
be offered. It is probable that the barley-fly is a species of Ce- 
cidomyia^ distinct from the Hessian and the wheat flies. That it 
is of the same genus may be conjectured from its attacking simi- 
lar kinds of plants, and from its having a similar parasite. The 
maggots of the Hessian fly live between the sheathing bases of 
the lower leaves of the culms of the wheat ; but the barley in- 
sects are found within the stems themselves, and lie concealed 
beneath the thickened epidermis or outer skin of the straw. 
Upon this essential difference in the mode of attack I ground my 
belief that the two insects are not identical ; and this conjecture 
is still further strengthened by the fact, that the parasite of the 
barley insect is not the same species as that of the Hessian fly. 
The barley midge ( Cecidomyia ? cerealis) of Europe, is said to 
be very injurious, in some parts of Germany, to barley and spelt, 
in the straw of which the larvae live in considerable numbers to- 



DIPTERA. 437 

gether, and by their attacks cause the stems to become warty, 
notched, and crooked, and afterwards to perish. But the ac- 
counts, given of this kind of insect by the Baron Kollar * and 
others, do not entirely agree with the httle that is known respect- 
ing our insect. 

We have reason to beheve, that the maggots of the barley-fly 
remain in the straw during the winter, and that they take the 
winged form in the spring, in season to lay their eggs on the 
young barley. It is therefore important to prevent them from 
completing their transformations. This may be done by burning 
the stubble, which contains many of the insects, in the autumn ; 
by destroying, in the same way, all the straw and refuse which is 
unfit for fodder ; and by keeping the grain in close vessels over 
one year, whereby the insects, which are disclosed from the 
small heavy pieces of straw remaining unwinnovved from the 
grain, will perish without an opportunity to escape. 

The wheat crops in England and Scotland often suffer se- 
verely from the depredations of the maggots of a very small gnat, 
called the wheat-fly, or the Ceciclomyia Tritici of Mr. Kirby. 
This insect seems to have been long known in England, as ap- 
pears from the following extract from a letter, by Mr. Christo- 
pher Gullet, written in 1771, and published in the "Philosophi- 
cal Transactions " for 1772. " What the farmers call the yel- 
lows in wheat, and which they consider as a kind of mildew, is, 
in fact, occasioned by a small yellow fly, with blue wings, about 
the size of a gnat. This blows in the ear of the corn, and pro- 
duces a worm, almost invisible to the naked eye ; but, being seen 
through a pocket microscope, it appears a large yellow maggot, 
of the color and gloss of amber, and is so prolific that I distinctly 
counted forty-one living yellow maggots in the husk of one single 
grain of wheat, a number sufficient to eat up and destroy the 
corn in a whole ear. One of those yellow flies laid at least eight 
or ten eggs, of an oblong shape, on my thumb, only while carry- 
ing by the wing across three or four ridges." In 1795, the his- 
tory of this insect was investigated by Mr. Marsham,f and since 

* Treatise, p. 124. 

t " Transactions of the Linnean Society," Vol. III., p. 142, and Vol. IV., p. 224. 



438 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

that time Mr. Kirby,* Mr. Gorrie, and Mr. ShirrefF,f have also 
turned their attention to it. The investigations of these gentle- 
men have become very interesting to us, on account of the re- 
cent appearance, in our own country, and the extensive ravages, 
of an insect apparently identical with the European wheat-fly. 
The following account of the latter will serve to show how far 
the European and American wheat-flies agree in their essential 
characters and in their habits. | The European wheat-fly some- 
what resembles a musquito in form, but is very small, being only 
about one tenth of an inch long. Its body is orange-colored. 
Its two wings are transparent, and changeable in color ; they are 
narrow at the base, rounded at the tip, and are fringed with little 
hairs on the edges. Its long antennae, or horns, consist, in the 
female, of twelve little bead-like joints, each encircled with 
minute hairs ; those of the male will probably be found to have a 
greater number of joints. Towards the end of June, or when 
the wheat is in blossom, these flies appear in swarms in the 
wheat-fields during the evening, at which time they are very ac- 
tive. The females generally lay their eggs before nine o'clock, 
at night, thrusting them, by means of a long, retractile tube in the 
end of their bodies, within the chaffy scales of the flowers, in 
clusters of from two to fifteen, or more. By day they remain at 
rest on the stems and leaves of the plants, where they are shaded 
from the heat of the sun. They continue to appear and lay their 
eggs throughout a period of thirty-nine days. The eggs are ob- 
long, transparent, and of a pale buff color, and hatch in eight or 
ten days after they are laid. The young insects, produced from 
them, are httle footless maggots, tapering towards the head, and 
blunt at the hinder extremity, with the rings of the body some- 
what wrinkled and bulging at the sides. They are at first per- 
fectly transparent and colorless, but soon take a deep yellow or 
orange color. They do not travel from one floret to another, 
but move in a wrigghng manner, and by sudden jerks of the body, 
when disturbed. As many as forty-seven have been counted in 

* " Transactions of the Linnean Society," Vol. IV., p. 230, and Vol. V., p. 96. 
t Coudon's " Magazine of Natural History," Vol. II., p. 323, and 448. 
t See also my article on wheat insects in the " New England Farmer," for 
March 31, 1841, Vol. XIX., p. 306. 



DIPTERA. 439 

a single floret. It is supposed, that they live at first upon the 
pollen, and thereby prevent the fertilization of the grain. They 
are soon seen, however, to crowd around the lower part of the 
germ, and there appear to subsist on the matter destined to have 
formed the grain. The latter, in consequence of their depreda- 
tions, becomes shrivelled and abortive ; and, in some seasons, a 
considerable part of the crop is thereby rendered worthless. 
The maggots, when fully grown, are nearly one eightii of an inch 
long. Mr. Marsham and Mr. Kirby found some of them changed 
to pupae, within the ears of the wheat, and from these they ob- 
tained the fly early in September. The pupa, represented by 
them, is rather smaller than the full-grown maggot, of a brownish 
yellow color, and of an oblong oval form, tapering at each end. 
The pupse found in the ears were very few in number, scarcely 
one to fifty of the maggots. Hence Mr. Kirby supposes, that 
the latter are not ordinarily transformed to flies before the spring. 
Towards the end of September he carefully took off the skin of 
one of them, and found that the insect within still retained the 
maggot form, and conjectures that the pupa is not usually com- 
plete until the following spring. According to Mr. Gorrie, the 
maggots quit the ears of the wheat by the first of August, descend 
to the ground, and go into it to the depth of half an incii. That 
they remain here unchanged through the winter, and finish their 
transformations, and come out of the ground in the winged form, 
in the spring, when the wheat is about to blossom, is rendered 
probable from the great number of the flies found by Mr. Shir- 
refF, in the month of June, in all the fields where wheat had been 
raised the year before. The increase of these flies is somewhat 
checked by the attacks of three difierent parasites, which have 
been described by Mr. Kirby. 

An insect, resembling the foregoing in its destructive habits, 
and known, in its maggot form, by the name of " the grain- 
worm," has been observed, for several years, in the northern 
and eastern parts of the United States, and in Canada. It seems 
by some to have been mistaken for the grain-weevil, the Angou- 
mois grain-moth, and the Hessian fly ; and its history has been 
so confounded with that of another insect, also called the grain- 
worm, in some parts of the country, that it is difficult to ascer- 



440 liNSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

tain the amount of injury done by either of them alone. The 
wheat-fly is said to have been first seen in America about the 
year 1828,* in the northern part of Vermont, and on the borders 
of Lower Canada. From these places its ravages have gradually 
extended, in various directions, from year to year. A consider- 
able part of Upper Canada, of New York, New Hampshire, and 
of Massachusetts have been visited by it ; and, in 1834, it ap- 
peared in Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly course, at 
the rate of twenty or thirty miles a year. The country, over 
which it has spread, has continued to suffer more or less from 
its alarming depredations, the loss by which has been found to 
vary from about one tenth part to nearly the whole of the annual 
crop of wheat ; nor has the insect entirely disappeared in any 
place, till it has been starved out by a change of agriculture, or 
by the substitution of late-sown spring wheat for the other va- 
rieties of grain. Many communications on this destructive insect 
have appeared in " The Genesee Farmer," and in " The Culti- 
vator," some of them written by the late Judge Buel, by whom, 
as well as by the editors of " The Yankee Farmer," rewards 
were offered for the discovery of the means to prevent its rav- 
ages. Premiums have also been proposed, for the same end, by 
the " Kennebec County Agricultural Society," in Maine, which 
were followed by the publication, in " The Maine Farmer," of 
three " Essays on the Grain Worm," presented to that Society. 
These essays were reprinted in the seventeenth volume of the 
" New England Farmer," wherein, as well as in some other vol- 
umes of the same work, several other articles on this insect may 
be found. From these sources, and, more especially, from some 
interesting letters wherewith I have been favored by a lady lately 
resident in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, the foregoing and fol- 
lowing statements are chiefly derived. A continued series of 
observations, conducted with care, and with a due regard to dales, 
is still wanted to complete the history of the various insects 
which are injurious to grain in this country. Could Mr. Herrick, 

* Judge Duel's Report in " The Cultivator," Vol. VI., p. 26; and " New Eng- 
land Farmer," Vol. IX., p. 42. Mr. Jewctt says, that its fifst appearance in 
western Vermont occurred in 1820. See " New England Farmer," Vol. XIX., 
p. 301. 



DIPTERA. 441 

who is so well qualified for the task, be induced to devote the 
necessary time and attention to this subject, we have reason to 
think that the interests of science and of agriculture would be 
greatly promoted thereby. 

The American wheat-insect, in its winged form, has not yet 
fallen under my notice. It is stated by Judge Buel, Mrs. Gage, 
and others, to agree exactly with the descrijDtion of the Euro- 
pean wheat-fly (Cecidomyia Tritici), being a very small orange- 
colored gnat, with long slender legs, and two transparent wings, 
which reflect the tints of the rainbow. Immense swarms of these 
orange-colored gnats infest fields of grain towards the last of June. 
While the sun shines they conceal themselves among the leaves 
and weeds near the ground. They take wing during the morning 
and evening twilight, and also in cloudy weather, when they lay 
their eggs in the opening flowers of the grain. New swarms con- 
tinue to come forth in succession, till the end of July ; but Mr. 
Buel says that the principal deposit of eggs is made in the first 
half of July, when late sown winter-wheat and early sown spring- 
wheat are in the blossom or milk. The flies are not confined to 
wheat alone, but deposit in barley, rye, and oats, when these 
plants are in flower at the time of their appearance. The eggs 
hatch in about eight days after they are laid, when the little yellow 
maggots or grain-worms may be found within the chaffy scales of 
the grain. Being hatched at various times during a period of 
four or five weeks, they do not all arrive at maturity together. 
Mrs. Gage informs me that they appear to come to their growth 
in twelve or fourteen days. Specimens of these maggots, which 
she has sent to me, were found to agree, in every respect, with 
the descriptions and figures of those of the European wheat-fly. 
They do not exceed one eighth of an inch in length, and are not 
provided with feet. From two to fifteen or twenty have been 
found within the husk of a single grain, and sometimes in every 
husk in the ear. After a shower of rain they have been seen in 
such countless numbers on the beards of the wheat, as to give a 
yellow color to the whole field.* These insects prey on the 
grain in the milky state, and their ravages cease when the grain 

• " New England Farmer," Vol. XII., p. 60. 
56 



442 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

becomes hard. They do not burrow within the kernels, but hve 
on the pollen and on the soft matter of the grain, which they 
probably extract from the base of the germs. It appears, from 
various statements, that very early and very late wheat escape 
with comparatively little injury ; the amount of which, in other 
cases, depends upon the condition of the grain at the time when 
the maggots are hatched. When the maggots begin their depre- 
dations soon after the blossoming of the grain, they do the greatest 
injury ; for the kernels never fill out at all. Pinched or partly 
filled kernels are the consequence of their attacks when the grain 
is more advanced. The hulls of the impoverished kernels will 
always be found split open on the convex side, so as to expose 
the embryo. This is caused by the drying and shrinking of the 
hull, after a portion of the contents thereof has been sucked out 
by the maggots. Towards the end of July and in the beginning 
of August the full-grown maggots leave off eating and become 
sluggish and torpid, preparatory to moulting their skins. This 
process, which has been alluded to by Judge Buel and some other 
writers, has been carefully observed by Mrs. Gage, who has, sent 
to me the maggots before and after moulting, together with some 
of their cast skins. It takes place in the following manner. The 
body of the maggot gradually shrinks in length within its skin, and 
becomes more flattened and less pointed, as may easily be seen 
through the delicate transparent skin, which retains nearly its 
original form and dimensions, and extends a little beyond the in- 
cluded insect at each end. The torpid state lasts only a (ew 
days, after which the insect casts off fts skin, leaving the latter 
entire, except a little rent in one end of it. This cast skin is 
exceedingly thin, and colorless, and, through a microscope, is 
seen to be marked with eleven transverse lines. After shedding 
its skin, the maggot recovers its activity, and writhes about as at 
first, but takes no food. It is shorter, somewhat flattened, and 
more obtuse than before, and is of a deeper yellow color, with an 
oblong greenish spot in the middle of the body. Within two or 
three days after moulting, the maggots either drop of their own 
accord, or are shaken out of the ears by the wind, and fall to the 
ground. They do not let themselves down by threads, for they 
are not able to spin. Nearly all of them disappear before the 



DIPTERA. 443 

middle of August ; and they are very rarely found in the grain at 
the time of harvest. Some persons have slated that they are 
transformed to flies in the ears of the grain, having probably mis- 
taken the cast skins found therein for the shells of the chrysalis 
or pupa. We have good reason for believing that the maggots 
burrow in the ground, and remain there unchanged, in a torpid 
state, through the winter. Whether, on the approach of spring, 
they again cast off their skins, in order to become pupae, or 
whether the skin hardens and remains as a shell to protect the 
pupa, has not been determined ; but it is probable that the skin 
is not cast off till the insect comes forth in the winged form. 
The last change seems to occur in June and July, when great 
numbers of the flies have been seen, apparently coming from the 
ground, in fields where grain was raised the year before. 

Several cases of the efficacy of fumigation in preventing the 
depredations of these insects are recorded in our agricultural 
papers.* For this purpose brimstone has been used, in the pro- 
portion of one pound to every bushel of seed sown. Strips of 
woollen cloth, dipped in melted brimstone, and fastened to sticks 
in diflierent parts of the field, and particularly on the windward 
side, are set on fire, for several evenings in succession, at the 
time when the grain is in blossom ; the smoke and fumes thus 
penetrate the standing grain, and prove very ofi^ensive or destruc- 
tive to the flies, which are laying their eggs. A thick smoke 
from heaps of burning weeds, sprinkled with brimstone, around 
the sides of the field, has also been recommended. Lime or 
ashes, strown over the grain when in blossom, has, in some cases, 
appeared to protect the crop ; and the Rev. Henry Colman, the 
Commissioner for the Agricultural Survey of Massachusetts, says 
that this preventive, if not infallible, may be relied on with strong 
confidence. f For every- acre of grain, from one peck to a bushel 
of newly slacked lime or of good wood ashes will be required ; 
and this should be scattered over the plants when they are wet 
with dew or rain. Two or three applications of it have some- 
times been found necessary. Whether it be possible to destroy 



* Among others, see " The Cultivator," Vol. V., p. 136. 

t " Third Report on the Agriculture of Massachusetts," p. 67. 



444 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

the maggots after they have left the grain, and have betaken them- 
selves to their winter quarters, just below the surface of the 
ground, remains to be proved. Some persons have advised 
burning the stubble, and ploughing up the ground, soon after the 
grain is harvested, in order to kill the maggots, or to bury them 
so deeply that they could not make their escape after they were 
transformed to flies. Perhaps thoroughly liming the soil before 
it is ploughed, may contribute to the destruction of the insects. 
It is stated that our crops may be saved from injury by sowing 
early in the autumn or late in the spring. By the first, it is sup- 
posed that the grain will become hard before many of the flies 
make their appearance ; and by the latter, the plants do not come 
into blossom until the flies have disappeared. In those parts of 
New England where these insects have done the greatest injury, 
the cultivation of fall-sown or winter grain has been given up ; 
and this, for some years to come, will be found the safest course. 
The proper time for sowing in the spring will vary with the lati- 
tude and elevation of the place, and the forwardness of the season. 
From numerous observations, made in this part of the country, it 
appears that grain sown after the fifteenth or twentieth of May 
generally escapes the ravages of these destructive insects. Late 
sowing has almost entirely banished the wheat-flies from those 
parts of Vermont where they first appeared ; and there is good 
reason to expect that these depredators will be completely starved 
out and exterminated, when the means above recommended have 
been generally adopted and persevered in, for several years in 
succession. 

Mrs. Gage has discovered another pernicious insect in the 
ears of growing wheat. It seems to agree with the accounts 
of the Thrips cerealium, which sometimes infests wheat, in 
Europe, to a great extent. This insect belongs to the order 
Hemiptera. In its larva state, it is smaller than the wheat 
maggot, is orange-colored, and is provided with six legs, two 
antennae, and a short beak, and is very nimble in its motions. It 
is supposed to suck out the juices of the seed, thus causing the 
latter to shrink, and become what the English farmers call pun- 
gled. This little pest may probably be destroyed by giving the 
^ grain a thorough coating of slacked lime. 



DIPTERA. 445 

Our agricultural papers contain some accounts of an insect or 
of insects much larger than the maggots of the wheat-fly, growing 
to the length of three eighths of an inch or more, and devouring 
the grain in the ear, and after it is harvested. The insects to 
which I allude have received the names of wheat-worms, gray 
worms, and brown weevils ; and, although these different names 
may possibly refer to two or more distinct species, I am inclined 
to think that all of them are intended for only one kind of insect. 
Sometimes this has also been called the grain-worm ; whereby it 
becomes somewhat difficult to separate the accounts of its history 
and depredations from those of the Cecidomyia, or wheat-insect, 
described in the foregoing pages. It may, however, very safely 
be asserted that the wheat-worm of the western part of New 
York and of the northern part of Pennsylvania is entirely distinct 
from the maggots of our wheat-fly, and that it does not belong to 
the same order of insects. From the description of it, published 
in the sixth volume of " The Cultivator,"* by Mr. Willis Gay- 
lord, this depredator appears to be a caterpillar, or span-worm, 
being provided with twelve feet, six of which are situated fiear 
each extremity of its body. Like other span-worms, or Geome- 
ters, it has the power of spinning and suspending itself by a 
thread. Mr. Gaylord says that it is of a yellowish brown or 
butternut color ; that it not only feeds on the kernel in the milky 
state, but also devours the germinating end of the ripened grain, 
without, however, burying itself within the hull ; and that it is 
found in great numbers, in the chaff, when the grain is threshed. 
He says, moreover, that it has been known for years in the west- 
ern part of New York ; and that it is not so much the new ap- 
pearance of this insect, as its increase, which has caused the 
present alarm respecting it. The transformations and the appear- 
ance of this insect in its perfected state have not yet been de- 
scribed. Mr. Nathaniel Sill, of Warren, Pennsylvania, has given 
a somewhat different description of it.f On threshing his winter- 
wheat, immediately after harvest, he found among the screenings 
a vast army of this new enemy. He says that it was a caterpillar, 
about three eighths of an inch in length, when fully grown, and 

* Page 43. t " The Cultivator," Vol. VI., p. 21. 



446 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

apparently of a straw-color ; but, when seen through a magnifier, 
was found to be striped lengthwise with orange and cream color. 
Its head was dark brown. It was provided with legs, could 
suspend itself by a thread, and resembled a caterpillar in all its 
motions. This insect ought not to be confounded with the 
smaller worms found by Mr. Sill in the upper joints of the stems 
of the wheat, and within the kernels, until their identity has been 
proved by further observations. It appears highly probable that 
Mr. Gaylord's and Mr. Sill's wheat-caterpillars are the same, 
notwithstanding the difference in their color. Insects, of the 
same size as these caterpillars, and of a brownish color, have 
been found in various parts of Maine, where they have done much 
injury to the grain. Unlike the maggots of the wheat-fly, with 
which they have been confounded, they remain depredating upon 
the ears of the grain until after the time of harvest. Immense 
numbers of them have been seen upon barn-floors, where the 
grain has been threshed, but they soon crawl away, and conceal 
themselves in crevices, where they probably undergo their trans- 
formations. Mr. Elijah Wood, of Winthrop, Maine, says that 
the chrysalis has been observed in the chaff late in the fall.* A 
gentleman, from the southern part of Penobscot county, informs 
me that he winnowed out nearly a bushel of these insects from 
his wheat, in the autumn of 1810 ; and he confirms the statements 
of others, that these worms devour the grain when in the milk, 
and also after it has become hard. In the autumn of 1838, the 
Rev. Henry Colman observed the same insect in the town of 
Egremont, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It was separ- 
ated from the wheat, in great quantities, by threshing and win- 
nowing the grain, t These wheat-worms, or wheat-caterpillars, 
as they ought to be called, if the foregoing accounts really refer 
to the same kind of insect, are supposed by some persons to be 
identical with the clover-worms, which have been found in clover, 
in various parts of the country, and have often been seen spinning 
down from lofts and mows where clover has been stowed away. J 



• " New England Farmer," Vol. XVII., p. 73. 

t " Second Report on the Agriculture of Massachusetts," p. 99. 

t " New England Farmer," Vol. XVII., p. 73. 



DIPTERA. 447 

A striking similarity between them has been noticed by a writer 
in the "Genesee Farmer."* Stephen Sibley, Esq., informs 
me that he observed the clover-worms, in Hopkinton, New 
Hampshire, many years ago, suspended in such numbers by their 
threads from a newly gathered clover mow, and from the timbers 
of the building, as to be very troublesome and offensive to 
persons passing through the barn. He also states, that if he 
recollects rightly, these insects were of a brown color, and about 
half an inch long. I am sorry to leave the history of these wheat- 
worms unfinished ; but hope that the foregoing statements, which 
have been carefully collected from various sources, will tend to 
remove some of the difficulties wherewith the subject has been 
heretofore involved. The contradictory statements and unsatis- 
factory discussions, that have appeared in some of our papers, 
respecting the ravages of these worms and the maggots of the 
wheat-fly, might have been avoided, if the writers on these in- 
sects had always been careful to give a correct and full descrip- 
tion of the insects in question. Had this been done, a crawling 
worm or caterpillar, of a brownish color, three eighths or half of 
an inch in length, probably provided with legs, and capable of 
suspending itself by a silken thread of its own spinning, would 
never have been mistaken for a writhing maggot, of a deep yellow 
color, only one tenth of an inch long, destitute of legs, and unable 
to spin a thread. When the transformations of the former are 
known, and the insect is obtained in its winged or perfected state, 
it will undoubtedly turn out to be a very different creature from 
the tiny, orange-colored wheat-fly. Until its transformations are 
ascertained, it will be of little use to speculate on the means to 
be used against its ravages. 

* " New England Farmer," Vol. XVII., p. 164. 



448 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Having now arrived at the end of my work, I have only to add 
a few remarks by way of conclusion. It has been my design to 
present to the reader a sketch of the scientific arrangement of the 
principal insects which are injurious to vegetation, not only in 
New England, but in most of the United States. The descrip- 
tions of the insects, being drawn up in familiar language, will 
enable him to recognise them, when seen abroad, in all their forms 
and disguises. The hints and practical details, scattered through- 
out the work, it is hoped will serve as a guide to the selection 
and the application of the proper remedies for the depredations 
of the insects described. I regret that it has not been in my 
power to do full justice to this important subject, which is far 
from having been exhausted. My object, however, will have 
been fully attained, if this treatise, notwithstanding its many faults 
and imperfections, should be found to afford any facilities for the 
study of our native insects, and should lead tq the discovery 
and the general adoption of efficient means for checking their 
ravages. 



INDEX. 



Abdomen, 

Achemon hawk-moth, 

Acheta abbreviata, 



igra, 
vittata, 



Achetadae, 

Acridium hemipterum, 

sulphureum, 

tuberculatum, 

Acronycta, 

Acronyctians (Acronyctadae), 

Acrydium, 

alutaceum, 

Aroericanum, 

femorale, 

femur-rubrum, 

fluvo-vittatum, 

laterale, 

marginatum, 

olivaceum, 

ornatum, 

peregrinum, 

viridifasciatum, 

jEgeria Cucurbitae, 

exitiosa, 

Pyri, 

tipuliformis, 

iEgerians (^Egeriadae), 

Aglossa pinguinalis, 

Agriotes. 

Agriotidians (Agrotididae), 

Agrotis aE^qua, 

agricola, 

aquilina, 

devastator, 

inermis, 

latens, 

messoria, . 

• ocellina, 

segetum, 

suffusa, 

telifiera, 

tessellata, 

Tritici, 

Alaus, . 
Alder Sphinx, 
Aleppo galls, 
Alucita, 

^ cerealella, 

Alucitae, 
American blight, 

57 



135, 



Page 
8,9 
228 
122 
123 
123 

119, 120 
147 
143 
142 
316 
310 

139, 141 
139 
140 
141 
141 
140 
152 
147 
140 
150 
135 
147 
232 

232, 352 
235 
234 
230 
443 
50 
321 
323 
323 

322, 324 
324 
323 
324 
324 
324 

322, 324 
323 
323 
324 
322 
48 
230 
397 
368 
365 
368 
193 



Ampelopsis. See Creeper 
Anacampsis cerealella, 
sarcitella. 



Ancylonycha, . 
Angoumois grain-moth, 
Anisopteryx, 

^scularia, 

pometaria, 

vernata. 



Anomala atrata, 

ccelebs, 

lucicola, 

varians, . 

vitis. 

Antennas, 

Anthomyia canicularis, 

ceparum, 

radicum, 

Raphani, 

scalaris, 

Anthomyians (Anthomyiadae), 
Antiopa butterfly, 



Ants, 

Ants attend plant-lice, 
Apate basillaris, 
Apatela Aceris, 

Americana, 



Page 

361, 365 

360 

28 

360, 365 

332 

332 

333 

332 

31 

31 

31 

31 

26 

8 

414 

415 

415 

415 

414 

414 

218 

189,191,369,370,371 



Aphaniptera, 

Aphidians (Aphididae), 

Aphis, 

Rosae, 

Caryee, 

lanigera, 

radicum, 

Salicti, 

Aphrophora, 

Apion rostrum, 

Sayi, 

Apple-tree borer, 

buds attacked by moths, 347, 

348 

sphinx, . . 230 

Apple-trees injured by American 

blight, . . 193 

bark-lice, 201, 203 

canker- 
worms, . . . 334 



189, 191 

76 

317 

317 

17 

164, 186 

188 

190 

190 

193 

190 

191 

182 

59 

59 

89 



caterpil- 
lars, 261, 266, 274, 279, 308, 311 

Apple-trees, other insects attack- 
ing, . , . 48,97 



450 



INDEX. 



Page 

Apple-worm, . . 351, 353 
Apples attacked by plum-weevils, 351 

Apples of Sodom, . . 398 

Apricot bud-moth, . 349 

Aplera, ... 17 

Arctia Acrea, . . 251 

Americana, . . 240 

Aro-e, . . 244 

Caja, . . .246 

• caprotina, . . 251 

f'uliginosa, . . 253 

Hebe, . . 247 

Isabella, . . 253 

luctifera, . . 257 

phalerala, . . 245 

Phyllira, . . 245 

pudica, . . 244 

punctatissima, . 255 

rubricosa, • . 253 

Scribonia, . . 24(i 

textor, . • . 255 

Urtica;, . . 24b 

Virginica, . . 248 

virgo, . . 244 

Arctians (Arctiada;), . . 242 

Areoda lanigera, . . 22 

Arrhenodes, . . .00 

Ash-tree borers, . . 231 

Asilians (Asilidae), . . 407 

Astasia torrefacta, . . 317 

Asterias buLterfly, . . 212 

Atlas moth, . . . 237 

moth of China, . . 281 

Attaci, . . . 23it 

Attacus Atlas, . . 237, 2>1 

Cecropia, . . 279 

Luna, . . . 277 

Folypliemus, . 279 

Promethea, . . 281 

Attelabians (Attelabidse), . 58 

Attelabus analis, . . 58 

bipustulatus, . 58 

Awl-bearer, . ... 126 

Azalea sphinx, . . 230 

Bacteria arumatia, . . 119 

. phyllina, . 119 

rubispinosa, . 119 

Balaninus, ... G5 
Balia, .... 306 
Balm of Gilead. See Poplar-tree. 

Bark-beetles, ... 72 
Bark-lice, 157, 165, 198, 201, 2o5 

enemies of, . 2()2 

on apple-trees, . 201 

■ ■ on grape-vines, 205 

■ to destroy, . . 203 

Barley, injured by insects, 417, 433 

Barley midge, . . 436 

Bat-ticks, . . . 420 
Beach-grass, use of, first pointed 

out by Linnyeus, . . 51 
Bean. See Windsor bean. 

Beans attacked by insects, . Ill 



Page 

Bear-caterpillars, . 242, 247 

Bee-flies, . . . 4()6 

Bee-moth, . . . 357 

Bees, . . 369, 370, 371 

Beeswax devoured by moth-worms, ."57 

Beetles, 

Belosloma, 

Bird-flies, . 

Bittacomorpha, 

Blackberry bush, its borer. 

Black fly, 

Blatla orientalis, 

Blennocampa, . 

Blight. American, . 

of peach-trees, . 



Blistering-beetles, 
Bompoptera, 
Bombyces, . 
Bombylians (Bombyliadae) 
Bombylius sequalis, 
Bombyx, 

Americana, 

Cossus, 

Mori, 

Borers, . . 41 

Bostrichians (Bostrichidse), 

Bot-bees, 

Bot-flies, 

Bots, 

Brenthians (Brenthidm), 

Brenthus maxillosus, 

septemtrionls, 

Bruchians (Bruchidae), 
Bruchus pisi. 
Bud-moths, 
Bug, plant, 

, squash, 

Bugs, 

Buprestians (Buprestidoe), 

Buprestis characteristica, 

denlipes, 

divaricata, 

Drummondii, 

jemorata, 

fulvoguttata, 

• lurida, 

obscura, . 

^ Virginica, 

Butterflies, . 

, four-footed, 

Button- wood ca erpillars, 
Button-wood trees bored by wood- 
wasps 



21,26 

421 

420 

404 

91 

405 

118 

383 

193 

192 

109 

18, 388 

239 

406 

406 

239 

265 

297 

275 

77, 231 

76 

418 

418 

419 

59 

60 

60 

55 

55 

347 

161 

158 

156, 158 

40, 94 

44 

44 

43 

45 

44 

45 

44 

44 

43 

209, 210 

216 

259 



390 



Cabbage butterfly, . 

I^calerpillar, 

cut-worm, 

plant-louse, 



214 
213, 214 
324 
190 
Cabbages injured by caterpillars, 328 
Calandia, . . . 61, 69 

granaria, . 70 

OryziB, . .• 70 

remotepunctata, . 70 

Callidium, ... 82 



INDEX. 



451 



Callidium bajulus, 

violaceum, 

Callimorplia Carolina, 

Clyniene, 

Colona, 

Doininula, 

Donna, 

Hera, 

Jacobaea, 

Lecontei, 

militaris, 

Farthenice, 

■ Virguncula, 

Calliphora vomitoria, 

Calosoma scrutator, 

Camel-crickets, 

Cane|>hor8e, 

Canker-worm, 

Cantharides (Cantharididse), 

Canlhaiis atrata, 

cinerea, 

rnarginata, 

vittata. 



Capricorn-beetles, . 77, 

Capsus oblineatus, 
Carolina sphinx. 
Carpenter- moths, 
Carpet-moth, 
Carpocapsa Pomonella, 
Carrot caterpillars, 
Cassida aurichalcea, 
Cassidadae, 

Caterpillars are the young of but 
terflies and moths, 
described, 

-, false, 

-, food of, 

-, habits of, 

-, injurious to gardens. 



Page 
83 
83 
243 
243 
243 
243 
243 
243 
243 
243 
243 
244 
244 
412 
340 
118 
298 
332 
1(1!) 

H2 
111 
111 

110 

80, 94 
161 
226 
2y7 
360 
351 
211 
98 
98 



-, numbers of, . 
-, spiny, 

-, transformations of, 
-, wheat 



Cecidomyia cerealis, 

destructor, 

Trilici, 



206 

206 
. 373 

206 

. 207 

247, 

249 
. 2ii6 

217 
5, 2118 

445 
. 436 

422 
437, 441 

421 



CecidomyiadcB, 

Cedar (red), insects attacking, 74 

Cedar-apples, . . . 396 
Celastrus. See wax-work plant. 

Celiis sphinx, . . ^ . 230 

Cepbalemyia ovis, . . 420 

Cephus, , . . . 373 

pygmffius, . . 373 

Cerambycidie, . . 77, 79, 80 

Cerambyx, ... 79 

cinctus, . . 8l 

palliatus, . . 92 

vioiaceus, . . 83 

Ceraphron destructor, . 432 
Cerasphorus, . . .81 

Ceratocampa regalis, . 287 

Ceratocampians (CeratocampadEe), 267 



Ceratomia quadricornis, 
Cercopididae, 
Cercopis ignipecta, . 

obtusa, . 

parallela, 

quadrangularis, 



Cerur 



-- borealis, 
furcula, 



Cetonia barbata, . 

eremicola, 

Inda, 

Cetonians (Cetoniadse), 

Chalcididae, 

Chafers, 

Chalcophoia, 

Charsfias graminis. 

Cheese mao^iiots, 

Clieimatobia brumata, 

Chelonia, 

Cheloniaires, 

Cherry-tree slug, 

sphinx, . 

- (wild), its borer 



Cherry-trees', infested by ca 

lars, 
Chionea valga, 
Chliimys gibbosa, 
Chloealtis, 
Chlorops glabra, . 
— pumilionis, 



lerpil 



(^hcErilus sphinx, 
Chcerocampa Chcerilus, 

Pampinatrix, 

versicolor, 



Chrysalids, 

Chrysobothris, 

Chrysomela, 

eaeruleipennis, 

Polygoni, 

scalaris, 

trimaculata, 

vitivora, 

Chrysomelians (Chrysomeladae) 

Chrysopa perla, 
Chrysops ferrugatus, 

vittalus. 

Cicada, 
Cicada, auletes, 

blandula, 

canicularis, 

hieroglyphica, 

pruinosa, 

septendecim, 

seventeen-year, . 16> 

tibicen, . 

Cicadians (Cicadada?), 
Cimbex Americana, 

Ulmi, 

Cinara, 

Clear-winged sphinx. 
Clematis attacked by insects 
Clisiocampa Americana, 



227 

Taa 

182 

182 

182 

182 

305 

30G 

305 

36 

38 

36 

35 

397 

23,24 

43 

322 

417 

332 

243 

242 

383 

230 

43 



266 
4(»4 
109 
148 
417 
417 
230 
230 
229 
230 
7 
44,45 
99 
108 
108 
107 
107 
10.5 
99, 
106 
197 
406 
400 
114 
170 
184 
175 
176 
176 
165 
167 
176 
104 
374 
374 

lyo 

230 
111 

269 



452 



INDEX. 



Clisiocampa castrensis, 

Neustria, 

silvatica, 

Clostera Americana, 

anastomosis, 

Clothes moth, 

Clover-worms, 

Clypeus, 

Clythra dominicana, 

quadriguttata, 

Clytus flexuosus, 

Hayii, 

pictus, 

speciosas, 

Coccida3, 
Coccinella, 
Coccus Adonidum, 

arborum linearis, 

conchiformis, 

cryptogamus, 

Hesperidum, 



268, 269, 272 
267, 272 
. 271 
314 
. 314 
360 
. 447 
21 
. 109 
109 
85 
84 
85 
84 
165, 198 
. 196 
199 
. 201 
201 
. 203 
199 
198, 199 
24 
. 118 
351 
. 407 
10,21 



Cochenille, 

Cock-chafer, 

Cockroaches, 

Codling-moth, 

Coenomyia pallida, 

Coleoptera, 

Columbine roots destroyed by cat 

erpillars, 
Comma butte?fly, 
Conocephalus dissimilis, 

ensiger, 

uncinatus. 



Conopians (Conopidaj), 
Conops nigricornis, : 

sagiltaria, 

Conotrachelus Nenuphar, 

variegatus, 

Coreus, lineolaris, 

moEstus, 

ordinatus, 

rugator, 

tristis, 



320 

. 221 

131, 132 

131 

. 132 

410 

. 410 

410 

66, 351 

66 

. 161 

158 

. 158 

158 

. 158 

Corn attacked by spindle-worms, 318 

destroyed by caterpillars, 145, 249 

destroyed by cut- worms, 322, 325 

Corn-weevil, . . 69, 70 

Cossus ligniperda, . . 297 

-; Robiniaj, . .^ 296 

CrambidiE, . . . 356, 357 

Creeper attacked by insects, 180,228 
Crickets, . . .119,121 

Crioceiians (Criocerididae), 195 

Crioceris bipustulata, . 104 

striolata, . . 103 

trilineata, . . 95 

Cryptocephalians (Cryptocephali- 

dffi), . . , . 108 

Cryptocephalus luridus, . 109 

Cuckoo-spit, . . 178, 182 

Cucuio, . . . .49 

Cucumber-bug, . . 100 

Cucumber skippers, . . 125 

Cucumbers, insects attacking, 100, 102, 
103, 125 



Curculio, 

granarius, 

hilaris, 

Nenuphar, 

Oryzae, 

pales, 

Curculionidffi, 
Currant-bush borer, 
Cut-worms, . 
Cynipidae, 
Cynips, 

bicolor, 

— confluentus, 

dichlocerus, 

galla? tinctoriae, 

nubilipennis, 

oneratus, 

seminator, 

semipiceus, . 

Cynthia Atalanta, 
Cardui, 



Dahlia attacked by spindle- 
Dasychira leucophaea, 
Deilephila Chamsenerii, 
lineata, 



Deiopeia bella, 

pulchella, . 

Delta-molhs, 

Dermaptera, 

Desmocerus palliatus, 

Diapheromera, 

Dicerca, . 

Diplolepis, 

Diptera, . 

Ditula angustiorana, 

Dog's-bane beetle, 

Dor-bugs, 

Dors, 

Dryocampa bicolor, . 

imperialis, 

pellacida, 

rubicunda, 

senatoria, 

— stigma. 



Earwigs, 

Elaphidion, 

Elater appressifrons, 

brevicornis, 

cinereus, 

communis, 

noctilucus, 

obesus, 

occulatus, 

Elateridae, 
F.lder, its borer, 
Elm caterpillars. 
Elms, insects attacking. 



61 

70 

62 

66 

70 

62 

61 

234, 236 

321 

. 395 

395 

. 399 

397 

. 399 

397 

. 398 

398 

. 399 

400 

. 223 

223 

worms, 319 

264 

230 

230 

241 

241 

343 

18 

92 

119 

43,44 

, 397, 398 

14, 401 

350 

. 108 

23,26 

23,26 

293 

290 

293 

293 

292 

292 

116 

81 
49 
50 
49 
49 
49 
50 
48 
46 
92 

219, 220, 222 
100, 107 



395 



Elm-tree, false caterpillars on it, 
sphinx-caterpillar, 



375 
227 
Elm-trees bored by wood-wasps, 390 
destroyed by canker- 
worms, • • 334, 341 
Encyrtus, . . • 386 



INDEX. 



453 



Page 

Erebus Strix, . . 237 

Eriosoma, . . .193 

Eristalis sincerus, . . 409 

Ermine moths, . . 242, 248 

Euchajtes Egle, . . 257 

Eudamus, . . . 223 

Tityrus, . . 223 

Eudryas grata, . . . 310 

unio, . . 310 

Eumenes, . . . 410 

Eumolpus auratus, . . 108 

Euplexoptera, . . .18 

Euiytoma destructor, . 432 

Hordei, . . 436 

Eyed sphinx, . . . 230 

Eyes of insects, . . 8 

Eyprepia, . . . 243 

False caterpillars, . . 373 

Feather- winged moths, . . 368 

Fir saw-fly, . . . 375 
Fir-trees attacked by moths, . 350 

destroyed by wood-wasps, 388 

Fire-beetle, . . .49 

Flea-beetles, . . '102 



Flea tribe. 

Flesh-fly, 

Flies, .... 

, flower, 

, golden-eyed, 

, how excluded from houses, 

, parasitic, 

Flower-beetles, 

Flower-flies, 

Fly, flesh, . . _ . 

, golden-eyed lace-winged, 

, hammer-headed, 

, Hessian, 

, house, 

, meat, 

, radish, 

, stable, . 

, viviparous, 

, wheat, . 

Fly-weevil that destroys wheat, 
Forlicula, 
Frit- fly, . 
Frog-hoppers, . . 178, 181 
Fruit, weevils in, . 67, 351 
Fruit-flies, ... 416 
Fruit-moth, . 351 
Fruit-trees injured by beetles, 28,32, 3S 
canker- 
worms, . . . 334 

cicadas, 172 

Fruits contain maggots, . 416 

Fur- moth, . . .360 

Gad-flies, . . .405 

Galeruca Calmariensis, . 100 

vittata, . . 100 

Galerucians (Galerucadee), 99 

Galleria cereana, . . 357 

Gall-flies, four-winged, . 371, 395 



420 
411 
401 
414 
406 
413 
411 
22, 35 
414 
411 
197 
417 
421 
413 
412 
415 
412 
411 
437 
365 
117 
417 



Gall-flies, two- winged, 

Gall-gnats, 

Galls, 

Gasterophilus equi, . 

hccmorrhoidalis, 

veterinus. 



Pago 

. 416 

42L 

370, 372, 395 

419 



419 

419 

. 273 

273 
. 274 
239, 330 
. 331 
239, 330 
0,225,236 
240 
. 404 
437, 441 
. 404 
401,421 
. 404 
421 
. 241 
241 
. 297 
22 
85, 112 
36 
. 320 
320 
. 319 
. 360, 363 
69 
. 439, 445 
228, 229, 309 
183 
. 237 
. 228, 229 
Grape-vines injured by bark-lice, 205 
by false cater- 
pillars, . . . 378 

other insects, 

23,31,32,104 
Graspers, . . • 116,118 
Grasshopper, its growth and changes, 6 
. See Locust. 



Gastropacha Americana, 

llicifolia, 

Velleda, 

Geometers (Geometrae), 

Geometra catenaria, 

Geometra?, 

Glaucopidians (Glaucopididse 

Glaucopis Pholus, 

Gnat, snow, 

, wheat, 

-, wingless, . 

Gnats, 

, long-legged, 

, gall, . 

Gnophria rubricollis, 

vittatae, 

Goat-moths, 
Goldsmith-beetle, 
Golden-rod, insects on, 
Goliah-beetle, 
Gortyna flavago, 

leucostigma, 

Zeae, 



Grain-moths, 
Grain-weevil, 
Grain-worms, 
Grape-vine caterpillars, 

leaf-hopper, 

Procris, 

sphinx, 



Grasshoppers, 

are locusts, 

Gray worm, 

Grease-moth, 

Ground-beetles, 

Grouse-locust, 

Grubs, 

Gryllidae, 

Gryllotalpa brevipennis, 

didactyla, 

Gryllus, . 

— bivittatus, 

chrysomelas, 

equalis, 



— erythropus, 

— maculatus. 



migratorius, 

sulphureus, 

Virginianus, 

Gymnodus scaber, 



120, 125 

114 

. 445 

343 

22 

1.50 

10, 21 

120, 125 

. 120 

121 

. 119 

140 

. 147 

144 

. 141 

126 

135, 141 

143 

. 147 

37 



454 



INDEX. 



Hackberry sphinx, 
Hag-moth, 
Hair-moth, 
Hallica chalybea, 
Cucumeris, 



Page 
230 
31)4 
3GU 
1(14 
103 
103 
103 
102 
420 
255 
245 
306 
300 



pubescens, . 

striolata, 

Halticadffi, 
Hare bot fly, 
Harleqain caterpillars. 
Harnessed moth, 
Harpya Milhauseri, 

Ulmi, 

Harvest-flies, 114, 157, 164, 105 

, dog-day, . .175 

, frosted, . 170 

, leaping, . . 177 

Hawk-moths, . 209, 210, 225 

Hazel-nut weevil, . . 05 

Hedge-hog caterpillar, . 252 

Hegemon Goliatus, . . 3(5 

Hemiptera, . . . 11, 15G 

heteroptera, . .157 

homoptera, 157, l(i4 

Hemiptycha, • . 17i) 

Hepialidffi, . . .294 

Hepiolus argenteomaculatus, 295 

Hamuli, . . 294 

Herminians (Herminiadee), 344 

Hesperiadas, . . . 2'J2 

Hessian fly, . . 421, 422 

Hickory borers, . 4I,44,«) 

caterpillars, . 257 

plant-louse, . . 190 

Hippobosca equina, . . 420 

Hispa marginata, . . 97 

quadrata, . . 97 

rosea, . . .97 

suturalis, . . 98 

Hog-caterpillar, . . 229,230 

Hoinaloptera, . . .18 

Homoptera, . 19, 157, 164 

Honey-dew, . . . 189 

Hop-vine caterpillars, 215, 220, 221, 344 

Hepiolus, . . 294 

Horn-bugs, . . . 38,40 

Horn-tailed wood-wasps, 13, 370, 386 
Horse-bot, . . 419 

Horse-flies, 
Humming-bird moths, 
Hybernia defoliaria, 

Tiliaria, 

Hybernians (Hyberniadas), 
Hydrocainpa, 
Hylecoetus Americanus, 
Hylobius, 

picivorus, 

Hylurgus dt-ntatus, . 

terebrans, 

Hymenoptera, 
Hypena Humuli 

rostralis, 

Hyphantria, 



Hypogymna dispar, . 



261 



. 405 

225 

. 342 

342 

. 332 

344 

52 

62 

63 

73 

72 

13, 369 

. 345 

345 

. 255 



Ichneumon-flies, 369, 370, 385, 391 
Insects, structure of, . .4 
, are produced from eggs, 5 



Jumpers, 

Kalmia sphinx, 
Katydid, 
Knot-grass beetle, 

Lachnus, 

Lackey caterpillars, 

Lady-birds, 

Lagoa opercularis. 

Lamia titillator. 

Lappet caterpillars, 

Larva, 

Lasiocampa Dumeti, 

processionea, 

Quercus, 



Roboris, 

Rubi, 

Trifolii, 



Lasiocampians (Lasiocampadae), 

Lasioptera, 

Laurel sphinx, 

Lepidoptera, 

Leaf-beetles, 

i^eaf-hopper of the rose, 

Leaf-hoppers, 

Leaf rollers, 

Leptura, 

picta, 

Robiniae, 

Lepturians (Lepturadae), 
Liinacodes, 

cippus, 

Deiphinii, 

pithecium, 

scapha, 



116, 119 

. 230 
127 

. 108 

. 190 
267 

. 196 
265 

87 
273 

7 

265 

. 284 

265 

. 265 

265 

. 2()5 

265 

424 

230 

12, 206, 209 

94 

. 382 

178, 1fe2 

346 

79 

85 

85 

79, 92 

. 302 

303 

. 303 

304 

. 303 



Lime or linden tree, insects on, 107, 341 
Linnaeus, anecdote respecting, .50 

made natural history useful, 50 



Lif)arians (Liparidaj), 

Liparis, 

Litljosians (Lithosiadte), 

Locust, 



grouse, 
. See Cicada, 



260 

. 26^, 265 

. 240 

134 

. 150 

165 

114,120,132 

224 

. 224 



Locusts, 
Locust-tree butterfly, 

caterpillar, 

boring caterpillars, 295 

, other insects attacking 

it, . .. 59, 85, 98, 179 

Locust (honey) attacked by insects, 1)2 
Locusta, . . . 139, 141 

abortiva, , . 149 

— ajqualis, . . 144 

agilis, . . . 130 

Carolina, . . 142 

conspersa, . . 149 



INDEX. 



455 



Locusta corallina, 

curtipennis, 

curvicauda, 

eucerata, 

tasciala, 

infuscata, 

latipennis, 

lauritolia, 

leucostoma, 

inaritiina, 

marmorata, 

miirraioria, 

nebulosa, 

oblongifolia, 

perspicillata, 

radiata, 



sulphurea, 

viridi-fasciata, 

Locustadoe, . 
Loopers, . 
Lopliocampa Caryae, 

maculata, 

tessellaris, 

Lophyrus Abbotii, 

Abietis, 

Americanus, 

— — compar, 

LoxotfEnia Rosaceana, 
Lozotaenia oporana, . 
Liucanians (Lucanidaj), 
Lucanus Capreolus, 

Dania, 

Lucilia Cajsar, 

Ludius, 

Lycenians (Lycsenadaj), 

Lyda, 

Lymexylidas, 

Lymexylon navale, 

sericeum, 

Lytta atrata, 

cinerea, 

vittata, 

Macrodactylus subspinosa, 

Maggot, its transformations, 

Maggots, 

, in cheese, . 

the liuman body, 

meat, . 411,412 

radishes and turnips, 415 

Maggots, rat-tailed, . " . 409 

, wheat, . 438, 439 

Mamestra picta, . . 329 

Mantes, . . . 118 

Maple caterpillars, . . 317 

Maple (sugar), its borer, . 84 

Marshes, salt, insects injuring, 135 

May-beetles, . . 23, 28 

Meadows injured by insects, 25, 28, 50 
Meal moth, . . . 343 

Meaiy^-bug, . . . 199 

Melanotus, . . .4') 

Mellophagus Ovis, . . 420 



Page 

142 

. 149 

129 

. 145 

131 

. 147 

144 

. 128 

144 

. 143 

145 

135, 141 

]4li 

. 128 

128 

. 148 

143 

. 147 

120, 132 

. 33(1 

258 

. 258 

242, 260 

. 376 

376 

. 370 

376 

. 348 

348 

38 

40 

40 

413 

49 

215 

. 373 

51 

51 

51 

. 112 

111 

. 110 

32 


. 402 

417 
. 416 

415 



Pago 

. 113 

23, 27, 30 
32 
30 

Melolonthians (Melolonthada;), 24 



Meloe angusticollis, 
Melolontha, . 

subspinosa, 

variolosa, 



MenibracidsD, 
Membracis acuminata, 

Ampelopsidis, 

bimaculata, 

binotata, 

bubalus, 



— camelus, 

— Cissi, 

— concava, 

— diceros, . 

— emarginata, 

— latipes, . 

— sinuata, 
taurina, . 

univittata, 

Metamorphoses, . 
Midas hiatus, 
Midges, 

Milesia excentrica, 
Milk-weed beetle, 

caterpillars, 

Mole-cricket, 

Monohammus, 

Mosquito, its transformations 

Mosquitos, 

Moth, origin of the word, 

Moths, . . 209,210,237 

in houses, how destroyed, 362 



Moth-worms, 
Muck-worm, 
Musca Caesar, 

domestica, 

Harpyia, 

vomitoria, 

Muscans (Muscadse), 
Mustard butterfly, 
- caterpillar, 



Mycetophilse, 
Mydas fliata, 
Myopa migripennis, 
Myrmecophila, 
Myrtle bark-louse, 

Nemeophila plantaginis, 

Nemobius, 

Nepa, 

Nettle butterfly, . 

Neuroptera, . 

Neuter insects, . 

Noctua clandestina, . 

devastator, 

Noctuse, 

Nonagrians (Nonagriada;), 

Notodonta concinna, 

unicornis, 

Notodontians (Notodontada;), 

Nut-weevil, 

Nycteribia, 



178 

179 

173, 181 

178, 179 

178, 181 

178 

. 178 

181 

. 178 

178 

. 178 

178 

. 178 

178 

178, 180 

178 

5 

407 

405, 421 

409 

. 106 

255 

. 120 

87 

5 

402, 403 

355 



355, 361 
. 28 

413 
. 413 

413 
. 412 

411 

. 214 

213,214 

. 403 

407 
. 410 

125 
. 199 

244 
. 123 

421 

. 223 

12 

• «:^ 370 

327 

. 324 

239, 315 

. 318 

309 
. 3o7 

301 
65 

420 



456 



INDEX. 



Page 
Oak-apples, . . .397 

Oak-pruner, . . 81 

Oak-tree caterpillars, . 271,291,299 
Oak-trees attacked by gallflies, 397 
Oaks, other insects attacking, 48, 89, 97, 
168, 180 
Oberea, 
Ocelli, 

CEcanthus niveus, 
CEcophora granella, 
CEdipoda, 

■ discoidea, 



CEstrians (CEstridae), 
CEstrus bovis, 

buccatus, 

Oiketikus, 
Oil-beetles, 
Omaloplia sericea, 

vespertina, 

Onion-fly, 

Onions, destroyed by maggots, 

Opsomala, 

Orchelimum gracile, 

vulgare, 

Orgyia antiqua, 

leucostigma, 

Ornithoniyia, 
Ortalidians (Ortalididoe), 
Orthoptera, 

ambulatoria, 

cursoria, 

: raptatoria, 

saitatoria, 

Oryssus, 

affinis, . 

liaemorrhoidalis, 

maurus, 

Sayii, 



terminalis, 



Oscinians (Oscinidaj), 
Oscinis frit, 

lineata, 

Osmoderma eremicola, 

scaber, 

Ourapteryx Sambucari, 
Owl-niolh, great, 
Owlet-moths, 
Ox bot-fly, . 
Oxya, 



Pack-moth, . . . 360 

Palpi, .... 8 

Pandeleteius, . . 62 

Papilio Asterias, . . 212 

Papiliones, . . . 209, 210 

Parsley caterpillars, . .211 

Parsley-worms, . . 211 

Pea-weevil, . . .54 

Peach-tree borer, . . 232 

in plum-trees, 252 

Peach-trees injured by plant-lice, 187, 

192 

Thrips, 187 

Pear-tree borer, . . . 235 



91 

8 

124 

365 

141 

142 

418 

420 

420 

298 

113 

30 

30 

415 

415 

138 

131 

. 130 

263 

. 262 

420 

. 416 

11,114 

116, 119 

. 116 

116,118 

116, 119 

393 

. 394 

394 

. 394 

394 

. 394 

417,418 

. 417 

417 

38 

37 

. 331 

237 

. 315 

420 

. 140 



Pear-tree slug, 

Pear-trees bored by wood-wasps, 

injured by bark-lice, 

, other insects attacking, 



Pears, worms in, 
Pease, insects attacking, 
Pectinated antennae, 
Pelidnota punctata, 
Penthina comitana, . 

luscana, 

oculana, 

Perophora Melsheimerii, 

Petrophila, 

Phalaenaj, 

anastomosis, 

brumata, 

vernata, 

Phaneroptera angustifolia, 
Philampelus Achemon, 

Satellitia, 

Phyllium pulchrif'olium, 

siccifolium, 

Phyllophaga fraterna, 

Georgicana, 

hiiticula, 

pilosicollis, 

quercina, 



383 
389 
203 
22, 
74 
355 
54 
236 
23 
349 
. 349 
349 
. 299 
344 
210, 237 
315 
. 332 
332 
. 129 
228 
. 228 
119 
. 119 
29 
29 
29 
29 
28 
. 128 
163 
. 161 
10 
. 309 
391 
. 391 
375 
. 230 
350 
wasps, 
391,392 
other insects at- 
tacking them, 43, 45, 62, 63, 72, 
73, 74, 80, 83, 92 
417 
63 



Phylloptera oblongifolia, 
Phytocoris campestris, 

lineolaris, 

Piercer, 
Piercers, 
Pimpla atrata, 

lunator, . 

Pine saw-flies. 
Pine-tree sphinx. 
Pine-trees attacked by moths 
by wood 



Piophila casei, 
Pissodes, . 
Plant-bug, 
Plant-lice, 

, cabbage, 

, downy, 

, hickory. 



, leaping, . 

, peach-tree, 

, rose, 

, willow, 

, on roots, . 

, how to destroy, 

, their enemies, 

Platygaster, 
Platyomides, 
Flatypliyllum concavum, 
Plum-tree warts. 
Plum-trees attacked by the peach 
tree borer, 

— slugs, 



161 

157, 164, 186, 187 
. 190 
193 
. 190 
186 
187,192 
190 
. 191 
191 
. 195 
196 
340, 432 
347 



128 

352 



352 
383 



INDEX. 



457 



Plum-weevil, 
P(Ecilochroma comitana, 
Polyphylla Melolontha, 

variolosa, 

Pontia oleracea, 
Poplar-tree caterpillars, 219 
Poplars, other insects attackin 
Porthesia auriflua, 

chrysorrhcea, 

Potato-fly, 

Potato-vines, insects attacking 
111, 112, 
Potato-worm, 
Potato (sweet), insects on, 
Prionians (Prionida;), 
Prionus brevicornis, 

cylindricus, 

laticollis, 

unicolor, 

Procris Americana, 

ampelophaga, 

Vitis, 

Progne butterfly, 

Psilura monacha. 

Psyche, 

Psychians (Psychada;), . 

Psylla, 

Pteromalus Vanessas, 

Pterophoridse, 

Pterophorus, 

Ptychoptera clavipes, 

Pulex, . 

Pulicidce, 

Pupa, 

Purslane sphinx, 

Pygajra ministra, 

Pyralides, 

Pyralis farinalis, 

Pomana, 

Pyrgota undata, 
Pyrophorus, 



Radish-fly, 

Radishes, injured by magg 
Raphidophora rnaculata, 
Rhagium decoloratum, 

lineatum, 

Rhipiptera, 
Rhynchaenus, 

Argula, 

Cerasi, 

nasicus, 

nemorensis, 

Nenuphar, 

Strobi, 

variegatus, 

Rhynchites blcolor, 
Rhynchophoridae, 
Rice-weevil, 
Romalea, 
Rose-bud moths, 
Rose-blig, 
Rose-bush galls, 
plant-louse, 

58 



ots, 



Page 

G6, 351 

. 349 

30 

30 

213 

305, 313 

g. 80,88 

261,265 

261,265 

110, 112 

95, 110 

113, 226 

226 

98 

79 

79 

80 

79 

80 

236, 241 

237 

236 

221 

261 

298 

298 

187 

220 

368 

368 

404 

42U 

17 

7 

230 

312 

39, 343 

343 

351 

409 

49 

415 
415 

126 
93 
93 
17 
61 
68 
68 
66 
63 
66, 351 
63 
66 
59 
53 
70 

139 

347, 350 

32 

399, 400 

190 



Rose-bush slug, . . . 380 

attacked by beetles, 30, 32, 

59 



Runners, 
Rustic-moths, 
Rutilians (Rutiladffi), 

Sack-bearers, 
Salt-marsh caterpillars. 
Sand-flies, 
Saperda, 

bivittata, 

calcarata, 

— tripunctata. 



Sarcophaga Georgina, 

Sarcophagans, 

Sargus, 

Sassafras-tree caterpillars, 

SatelHtia hawk-moth, 

Saturnia Hera, 

lo, . 

Mala, 



Proserpina, 

Saturnians (Saturniadie), 
Saw-flies, 

Saw-horned beetles, 
Scarabaeians ( ScarabaBidae), 
ScarabcEUS Indus, 

Melolontha, 

relictus, 



Scarlet grain, 
Scientific names useful, 
Scolytidas, 
Scolytus destructor, 

Pyri, 

terebrans, 

Selandria barda, 

pygmaea, 

Rosae, 

Vitis, 



116 

321 

23 

298 

248 

405 

88 

89 

88 

91 

412 

412 

409 

280 

228 

286 

284 

285 

265 

. 276 

369, 370, 371 

40 

21 

. 36 

30 

28 

198 

19 

72 

. 73 

75 

72 

380 

. 380 

380 

378.380 



(Blennocampa) j^llhiops, 383 

Cerasi, 383 

. 219 

230 

. 230 

225 



Semicolon butterfly, 
Sesia diffinis, 

pelasgus, 

Sesias, 

Shagbark. See Walnut. 

Sheep bot-fly, 

ticks, 

Silk, native, 
Silk-worm, 
Simaethis, 
Simulium molestum, 

nocivum, 

Siphonaptera, 

Sirex Columba, . 

Sitopliiius, 

Skippers, 

Slug-caterpillars, 

Slug-worm, 

Slugs, 

Smerinthi, 

Smerinthus, . 

' — excEEcata, 



. 420 
420 

276, 282 

239, 275 

. 343 

405 

. 405 

17 

. 389 

70 

210, 222 

302 

. 3-2 

373, 379 

, 225 

230 

. 230 



458 



INDEX. 





Page 


1 


Pagfi 


Smerinthus Juglandis, 


230 


Tephritis Asteris, 


. 417 


myops, 


. 230 


Tetrix, 


. 139,150 


Snout-beetles, 


61 


bilineata, 


. 151 


Snow-gnat, 


. 404 


dorsalis, 


151 


Sodom, apples of, 


398 


lateralis, . 


. 151 


Soldier-flies, 


. 408 


ornata. 


150 


Soothsayers, 


118 


■ *,m:« 


. 152 




Spanish-flies, 


. 109 


quadrimaculata, 


151 


Span-worms, 


. 330,445 


sordida, , 


. 151 


Spectrum bivittatum, 


. 119 


Tettigonia, . 


. 183,382 


femoratum. 


119 


Fabae, 


. 186 


Sphecomyia undata, 


. 409 


Vitis, 


. 184,382 


valida, . 


410 


Tettigoniadce, 


. '182 


Sphinges, . , 


210, 225 


Thecla Favonius, 


. 215,216 


Sphinx Carolina, 


226 


Humuli, 


. 216 


cinerea, . 


. 230 


Thistle butterfly. 


223 


coniferarum. 


230 


Thola, , 


. 198 


drupiferarum, 


. 230 


Thorn hedges injured by caterpil- 


Gordius, 


230 


lars, 


264 


• Hyla3us, . 


. 230 


Thrips, . 


. 187 


. Kalmiae, 


230 


, cerealium. 


449 


quinquemaculatus. 


. 227 


Thysanoptera, 


18 


Sphyracephala brevicornis, 


417 


Tibia, 


9 


Spilonota comitana. 


. 349 


Tiger moths, 


242, 243 


Spindle-worm, 


318 


Timber-beetles, 


51 


Spinners, 


. 239 


Tinea crinella, . 


. 360 


Spring-beetles, 


46 


destructor, 


361 


Squash-bug, 


. 158 


flavifrontella, 


. 361 


Squash-vine jEgeria, 


232 


granella, 


360, 363 


Squash-vines, insects injur 


ng, 158, 232 


Hordei, 


. 365 


k^t n (T. nppl 1 PQ 


38 


*.«^ll^w,„ll-. 


357 
. 360 


Star-wort gall-fly, 


. 417 


pellionella. 


Stauropus, 


306 


Pomonella, 


351 


Stenocorus, 


. 81 


tapetzella, 


. 360 


cinctus, . 


81 


vestianella, 


360 




92 
81 


Tineae, 

Tineans (Tineadae), 


239, 355 
356, 360 


garganicus, 




93 


Tityrus skipper, . 


. 223 




, ... . ■niitatnr 


81 


Tomicus exesus, 


74 




Sting, 


10 


Fini, 


74 


Stingers, 


369 


Tortoise-beetles, 


98 


Stinging caterpillars, 


. 283 


Tortrices, 


239, 346 


Stomoxys calcitrans, 


412 


Tortrix cereana, 


357 


StratiomyadiE, 


. 408 


Trachypteris, 


. 45 


Stratiomys, . 


408 


Tragocephala, 


146 


Strepsiptera, 


17 


Transformations, 


5 


Suture, 


98 


, imperfect, 


115 


Swamp-apples, . 


. 396 


Tree-beetles, 


22,23 


Swamp-pink attacked by ga 


11- flies, 396 


Tree-hoppers, 


178 


Syrphians (Syrphida^), . 


. 409 


Tremex Columba, 


. 389 


Syrphus, 


197 


Trichius scaber, 


37 


Syromastes, : 


. 160 


Trichoptera, 


18 






Trochilium denudatum, 


232 


Tabanus atratus, 


405 


Truxalis, 


. 138 


circtus, 


. 405 


Turnip butterfly, 


214 


lineola, 


406 


caterpillar, 


213,214 


Tachina, . 


. 340 


fly, 


102, 105 


vivida, 


411 


Turnips, attacked by insects, 


102, 105, 


Tachinadaj, 


. 411 




414 


Tapestry-moth, 


360 


Turpentine-moths, 


. 350 


Tarsi, . . . 


9 


Tussock moths, 


258, 261 


Tent-making caterpillars. 


266 






'I'enthredinidfB, , 


. 371 


Unicorn moth, 


. 307 


Tenthredo Cerasi, 


383 


Uroceridae, • • 


3S6 



INDEX. 



459 



Page 

. 392 

391 

. 388 

388, 392 

. 391 

218 
. 218 

221 
. 221 

221 
. 219 

221 
. 218 

2G3 
. 378 

111 
21 

110,119 
. 119 

76 
277, 287 
. 230 
Wasps, ", ■ . 369, 370, 371 
Wax-moth, , . .357 
Wax-work plant attacked by insects, 181 
Web- worms, . . 254 
Weevils, . . 19,53 
, brown, . . 445 



Urocerus abdomlnalis, 

albicornis, 

gigas, . 

Juvencus, . 

nitidus, 

Vanessa, 

Antiopa, 

C. album, . 

C. argenteum, 

Comma, 

Interrogationis, 

Progne, 

Vanessians (Vanessiadae), 

Vaporer moths. 

Vine saw-fly, 

Virgin's bovver, insects on, 

Visor, 

Walkers, 
Walking leaves, 
Walnut-tree beetles, 

caterpillars, 

sphinx. 



Wheat injured by insects, 
417,421,437, 
caterpillar, 



Page 

69, 363, 365, 

439, 444, 445 

. 445 

417, 421,437 

363, 365 

. . 69 



Wheat-flies, 

Wheat-moths, 

Wheat-weevil, 

Wheat-worm, . . 445 

Whortleberry sphinx, . 230 

Willow caterpillars, . . 219 

plant-louse, . . 191 

Willow-herb sphinx, . . 230 

Willow-tree caterpillars, . 305 

Windsor bean attacked by insects, 185 

Wire-worms, • . .46 

Wood-wasps, . . 386 

Woolly bears, . . . 242 



Xiphicera, 
Xiphydria, 

albicornis, 

mellipes, 

Xyleutes Cossus, 
Robiniaj, 

Yponomeutadse, 
Ypsolophus granellus, 

Zebra caterpillar, 

Zeuzera, . 

Zeuzerians (Zeuzerados) 



139 

389, 392 

392 

. 393 

297 

. 297 

356, 365 
. 365 

328 

. 294 

294 



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